


The Game

by sarcatsm



Category: Original Work
Genre: Detectives, Dystopia, Inspired by The Hunger Games, Murder, Murder Mystery, Science Fiction, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26017780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcatsm/pseuds/sarcatsm
Summary: One hundred enter, one returns. Welcome to The Game.One hundred girls, locked inside a complex that has everything they need to commit the perfect murder. Among these Undecideds is Avi, who's perfectly content to sit back and let the spy find the killer. That is, until the spy is brutally murdered the first night, with Avi as the sole witness. Without the spy's guidance, the Innocents must fend for themselves in a deadly game of cat and mouse. The worst part is, the killer could be any one of them.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not yet complete. I write slowly and have awful writer's block, so new chapters only come out about once a month. Sorry for any inconvenience (who am I kidding no one reads this).
> 
> Yes, I know, I'm a monster for writing a story in which there is a high chance the protagonist and everyone they love will be slowly killed off but... okay yeah I have no defense for that.
> 
> Enjoy, I guess...?
> 
> (I'm going to put the prologue here because this site's formatting doesn't allow prologues)
> 
> Prologue: The Rules
> 
> Dry your eyes, wipe your tears  
> It’s time for another day  
> No big deal, just take the knife  
> And wash your fears away
> 
> There is a game that we play. One hundred enter, one returns. All girls, as boys already have destinies laid out for them on silver platters. No one plays willingly. We are dragged from our homes, kept sedated until the playing field is ready. There is one murderer, and one spy, implemented by the Superiors. The spy searches for the killer. The killer tries not to be found. And the ninety-eight innocents… They try to stay alive.  
> The killer doesn’t know their identity. Not until the first one dies.  
> If the spy captures the murderer, the remaining innocents are not set free. They are kept, and it turns into the second round. This time, there is a rule: Kill or be killed. No spy, no more safeguards. Every time, someone will snap, and the innocents will be picked off, one by one. You won’t play this at recess, there are no extra lives or levels to conquer. This is life or death, the survival of the fittest.  
> If the murderer from either round kills everyone, if they are the last one left, they advance to the next round. The Superiors have created a simulator, devised to test the mental limits.  
> You are given a knife, instructed to do what you desire with it. They torture you, mess with your head. Scenarios designed to force you to take the knife and drive it into your own throat. It lasts one day. By that time, most everyone will be lost. Those who remain become Assassins, the servants of the Superiors.  
> Another ending of this game can occur, but rarely. If the murderer kills everyone except the spy, the spy possesses the authorization to kill the murderer. The spy cannot eliminate the murderer under any other circumstances. If the spy ‘wins,’ then nothing else will occur. No second round, no second game.  
> The bottom line of this game is that there is no good ending. No, happily ever after, no fairy godmothers and tea parties. You came, you saw, you died. I had accepted my fate that first night that I would not make it out of here.  
> But neither would anyone else.
> 
> ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴘʟᴀʏ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please make sure you read the prologue first, I put it in the notes to avoid formatting issues.

_ Close your eyes, you innocent child _

_ Go back to bed, my dear _

_ The monsters might be running wild _

_ But don’t you shed a tear _

I came in after dinner to find a note. My feet froze to the carpet and remained locked in place. It lay on my bed as if it didn’t know its purpose. The message was scribbled in pen on a precious shred of material paper. I pulled my sweatshirt sleeve over my trembling hand and brought it closer to my face. At first, my tear-filled eyes saw it as gibberish. The longer I stared at it, the more the incomprehensive sequence of letters morphed into words. Three words, each one sending a pang of fear through my heart.

You are chosen.

My breath caught in my throat. My forgotten pencil clattered to the floor as my rosy hand fell limp. I reached under my pillow, to grasp the weapon that resided under it. I had awaited the note with dread. We were sixteen now, me and the rest of the class V-4. Everyone else had chosen their path, they all knew what they wanted to do. Chemist, musician, hacker. Everyone had a purpose except me.

Normally, I would be taken to a facility, a summer school of sorts. But the Undecideds were being stolen, never to be seen again. It wasn’t uncommon. At least one hundred Undecideds would receive an identical message, as punishment for making a choice and choosing wrong. Others would run, shriek, hide. The bravest might even take it out on themselves. They would do anything to avoid their macabre fate. I, meanwhile, perched on the corner of my mattress and waited.

They were late. The Assassin arrived just as I thought I might live. The day had long since turned to night, highlighting the headlights of the Hovers that chugged through the skies. I took a breath and turned around towards the window. Their mask revealed nothing except their eyes, which were empty and robotic, pale gray. They scanned the room and took in the dagger, monogrammed with my initials on the blade. It had been a present for my fifteenth birthday, given to me by an aunt that knew more than she should have.

The Assassin clambered through my window. I had left it open on purpose. Their muted brown ponytail swished in the wind as they approached me. An expression of panic smothered my grin as soon as it appeared. I pulled myself onto my feet and directed the blade at them. This was it. I would live through this and they couldn’t stop me. My heartbeats pounded in my ears, speeding up. As I steadied my hands, the Assassin moved. Their arm extended, revealing layers upon layers of cybernetic joints.

I remained still as they plunged the syringe into my neck.

I woke up too early. I knew it because no hands reached pluck me out of the capsule, and they all chatted, oblivious to my existence. Smudges coated the glass, obscuring my vision. Wait a minute. I died. There shouldn’t have been glass. I shouldn’t have been feeling anything. They killed the Undecideds. That was the lie I had been force-fed my entire existence.

I tried to open my mouth but found a mask smothering it, connected to a long plastic tube. My head felt like it had been stuffed with wool, and my neck still stung where the needle’s tip had pierced me. I stayed silent as one of the shadows passed by me. Multiple cords fed into my wrists, supplying me with nutrients. Maybe I was in a hospital. They could have found my body in the dumpster, I could’ve survived. But that would be a miracle. I didn’t believe in miracles. I racked my brain for an explanation. Did they kidnap the Undecideds and put them to work in the factories?

I hovered in an anti-gravity chamber. The air that flowed through the mask had a chemical tang to it. They were feeding me some sort of sedative to keep me contained. It wasn't working. I paused in scanning my environment when I heard voices.

“Get the chip…the murderer…” My breath caught in my throat. They said murderer. Someone died. It might not have been today or tomorrow, but the word murderer has no positive connotation. A name came after. See-are. Si-are. Si-arre. Ci-arre. I sounded it out in my head, brainstorming its spelling.

Someone wandered near my enclosure, and I closed my eyes again. “Hey, chief.” A man’s voice. “This one’s awake.”

“Oh, we have an early riser.” Another guy. This one’s voice was smooth and gliding like a serpent’s tongue. “Put her back under.” I gasped and wrenched the mask off of my face, breaking one of the cords in the process. This equipment had not been designed to withstand movement. “Or.. not. Inject her.” The man’s tall shadow moved toward me. I narrowed my eyes.

“Where am I? What’s going on? Who are… you?” I trailed off as the translucent glass walls slid down around me. I plummeted onto the hard concrete floor. “Ow…” I pushed myself into a sitting position. My eyes were met with a needle, sharp, and glimmering. Whatever question I launched next evaporated from my mouth. I backed up. I made it a few feet before someone attacked me from behind, stabbing another needle into my back. I passed out before my head could strike the ground.

  
  


The next time I awoke, they had placed me in a bed. I wore a plain white t-shirt and gray leggings. A thin band of metal circled my ankle, no doubt a tracker. A hologram floated in front of my blurry eyes. The Rules. The minute I read the first paragraph, a feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. They did kill the Undecideds. Just not by themselves. My door slid open, and I jumped up before realizing it was Elia. They had assigned each of us a companion that we'd meet before the Game’s beginning. 

“Hi… Avi, right?” She had glistening light brown skin, and brown hair pulled up into two miniature buns. Her expression was innocent as if she didn’t know that we were all going to die here. 

“Yeah,” I answered.

“So, we’re supposed to be friends?”

“Sure, fine.”

“Are you even listening?”

“Mm-hm.” I nodded, searching through the room. 

“What are you doing?”

“Stuff.” I brushed the dust off my hands and stood up to get a better look at her. To put it simply, she was gorgeous, with the exaggerated curves that today's beauty standards demanded. Elia stood with her hands clasped behind her back, tilting her head up to meet my eyes. 

“Are we gonna go soon?”

“Go where?” My response came out harsher than I intended.

“The meeting thingamajig in the cafeteria.”

I walked toward the door. It didn’t budge. I yanked on it harder. “It’s locked.” I went to the desk and rummaged through the drawer. This room looked like a low-tech student’s dormitory, so there had to be something useful in here.

My fingers grasped a lockpick, alone at the back of the drawer. This was too easy. They could have handed me a key and been done with it. 

“What is that?”

“A lockpick.” I jammed it into the door.

“Where did you get that? What are you doing?” Elia peered over my shoulder.

“Take a guess.” With a satisfying click, the door slid open. 

I pulled the door open for Elia and darted out after her, still gripping the lockpick in my clenched fist. Elia looked at the maze of hallways like the Labyrinth, but it wasn’t that complex. A cross between a hospital, a hotel, and an abandoned crime scene.

When I reached the cafeteria, I paused in the doorway. I knew the Superiors had dragged in one hundred people, but I didn’t realize that, in terms of teenage girls, that was an intimidating number. The murderer had a hard job, eliminating all of them. I doubted anyone won.

The dining room was expansive, with twenty-five circular tables. Enough for one hundred twenty-five victims. Certain sections of the off-white walls had been tinged pink from years of bloodshed, and the floor wasn’t even white anymore. 

I slid into a seat as the intercom crackled on with a high-pitched squeal.

“You know why you are here.” The voice boomed from the loudspeaker, startling at least eighty of us. “You know the rules. Now you follow them. If you look to the back of the room, you will see a list of holographic projections. Please select one of the items listed to use for this Game.” All one hundred heads swiveled to the back. At once, every single recruit made a mad dash for the items listed. I hung back until the end of the line reached me. If they used holograms to represent them, they had to have enough of each object to supply us all with one. 

I didn’t realize the line had trickled down to me until the girl in front of me yanked on my hand, urging me forward. I reached for a knife when my eye caught on something else. A computer, behind the security camera. Although I might come to regret my choice, I selected it. My access to messaging would be restricted, but that wasn’t what I planned on using it for. 

“You all may return to your designated rooms at this time.” Elia bounced up to me as I walked.

“What did you pick? I got a pistol.” 

“Computer.” I shuddered at the thought of Elia with a pistol. She could injure herself or an Innocent.

“Computer? Why?” Elia nibbled at her nail as she spoke.

I didn’t respond and arched a left into my hallway. Elia broke away from me and entered another room. Her room number was ninety-eight. Mine was one hundred, all the way at the end of the second hallway. 

When I whipped the door open, the laptop waited for me. It was an ancient model, constructed back when there was no messaging service built-in and no holograms. I thought all the older models had been destroyed.

I found a login code floating above it, as well. I wasn’t supposed to change any of the info, but it was too effortless to resist. Older tech had almost no protection against hackers. I hadn’t even tried in my coding class, but I could still break-in. This way, no one could get into the device except me.

The opening screen directed me to a page showing profiles of all the participants here. This seemed too obvious to be true, but I wasn’t complaining.

As I began to get some real work done, someone knocked on my door. It was booming and forceful, capable of scaring the life out of me. I shoved the laptop under my bed and opened the door. 

The girl standing in front of me was blonde, with pale skin and brown eyes. She was slender and much taller than my average height. Her smile was admirably wide, stretching further than it should have. “Hi, Avi.” She chirped. “I’m Olive. I’m in room ninety-nine.” She motioned to the door across from mine. 

“I know.” Even with the interruption, I had still managed to gather a tidbit of information. Olive had chosen a computer as well, so I wasn’t surprised she knew my name and room number.

“Can I come in?” Her arms were limp at her sides as she used her formidable height to peer into my room. I snatched my lockpick and closed the door. My room wasn’t anything special, but I’d grown accustomed to people staying out of my business.

“...I’ll take that as a no.” Olive’s grin drooped a little bit, but it soon perked back up. “So, why did you choose a computer?” She had done extensive research, I could tell. 

“I didn’t want a knife, and I figured web access might help. Although I would’ve chosen differently if I knew how crappy the model was.” I let out a halfhearted snort at my predicament.“What about you? What’d you choose?”

“Computer too. I took coding in school, so I thought it might be useful.” She rocked back and forth as she spoke. 

I nodded. Silence followed, suffocating the already tense air. I pressed my back against my door. “I guess I should go back in now. Nice to meet you.” I pushed the door open and stumbled backward into my room. As soon as the door shut, I wiped the smile off my face and got back to work. Olive was pleasant enough, but I had more important things to do. 

I stared at the individual profiles, trying to memorize the data before they died. I much prefer the people over the events. It doesn’t matter what happens, I wouldn’t remember that. I remember the faces. Too bad I’m stuck in here, where all the faces will be covered with body bags.

Lunch that day was a stream of information dictating when mealtimes would be and what bonus weapons would be at our disposal. Knives in the kitchen, hedge trimmers in the minuscule gardens, dumbells in the exercise room. Dumbells and hedge trimmers would leave a huge mess and a lot of DNA. The knives might be a better choice if I required a weapon.

Elia remained glued to my side the entire day, clinging onto my arm as we were shown around the complex by an android with long, flowing blue braids. As I glanced around, I caught the eyes of Carmen. She had taken self-defense and skyrocketed to the top of her class. She could be a valuable ally. Maybe I could befriend her eventually. It would be nice to have more than one friend.

Elia tugged on my sleeve. “Who are you looking at?”

“No one.” I snapped, ashamed that I had been staring. 

“Was that your crush?” Elia mocked me as we filed into line to go back to our rooms.

“Why is that the first thing you assume?” I rolled my eyes. “Hey, do you wanna go and get some knives from the kitchen? You know, in case that gun turns out to be out of bullets?”

Elia shuddered. “That would mean breaking into the kitchen. I don’t want to do that.”

“Suit yourself.” I fished my lockpick out of my pocket and forced my door open.

After hours of fruitless research and a considerable amount of exploration (For example, I only had one pillowcase), Elia tapped on my door. “It’s almost time for dinner.”

“Coming.” I rushed to shove my computer under my bed and slip my shoes on. When I opened the door, Elia had changed into a longer top that came halfway to her knees. She had discovered the makeup as well and was holding a heaping armful of it. “Can I come in?” She asked. 

“Uh… sure.” I widened the door to allow her to slide through. I needed to make use of this time before the murders. Might as well make some allies too.

Elia beelined straight to the bathroom and dug through the drawers. “Ooh.” She pulled out a berry-colored lipstick and a small blush.

“Yeah, I was getting around to putting that on.” I pulled her petite fingers away from my vanity.

“Do you wanna do our makeup together?”

I paused. I didn't like sharing my space with anyone else, but she looked so enthusiastic I couldn’t refuse her. “Fine. Scoot over.” I nudged her onto the spare stool next to the vanity.

She dumped all of her supplies onto the counter. “Look.” She pulled out a giant blush pouf and bopped me on the nose with it. I grinned.

She was too innocent to be in here. 

While I applied small amounts of concealer to various pimples around my nose, Elia dove straight into the hoard of supplies. She yanked out the most blinding lip gloss I had ever seen and slathered an impeccable layer of it onto her full lips. “Do you wanna try some?” She waved the tube at me. 

“No, thanks.”

“At least put on some blush.” She insisted. I grudgingly accepted the compact and began dotting it on my cheeks. Usually, I had an android do my makeup for me, like most people in my area. 

“Can I help?” Elia had finished her brows and done her eye makeup in a flash. I passed her the makeup.

“How do you know how to do makeup so well?”

“Oh... thanks.“ Elia blushed. “Just tutorials and stuff. We never had an android, so… ” I nodded, though I couldn’t imagine life without mine. “There. All done.” Elia proclaimed. I opened my eyes. She had done well. The blush looked less like a cartoon and more like a natural addition to my face, and she had even managed to conceal the dark circles that had appeared under my eyes.

“Thanks.” I smiled at her and slipped on my shoes. “We should go now.” She was harmless, but her presence in my space made me anxious.

“Ok.” Elia cast one more longing look at the mirror before bouncing up beside me. “What do you think they’re serving for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know.” I jogged to catch up with the mass of Innocents that were gathered at the cafeteria doors. “What’s going on?” I hollered over the din of a hundred voices. 

“The door’s locked.” A girl named Sayome hollered over the crowd. All I could spot of her was her floppy black bun peeking above the throng.

“Do you have your lockpick?” Elia screamed at me to be heard.

I dug my hand into my pocket. My fingers grazed the tool before I extracted them. I shook my head. “I forgot about it.” I didn’t want to identify myself as a threat. The way I saw it, everyone here was a killer.

Through the chaos, I spotted Olive shoving her way through the crowd, lockpick in hand. She had taught herself how in Intermediate School. After a heart-stopping moment of silence, she pushed the heavy faux-wood door open. Cheers erupted in the crowd. First one person, then another, then an entire cacophony of clapping. My hands stayed down by my sides as we all streamed into the cafeteria.

Dinner was a simple pizza, delivered to us by drones. I caught one girl giving a camera the finger, but so far nothing happened. More informational lectures were extending late into the night. I didn’t pay attention to them, I was too involved in my thoughts.

While Elia and I were walking back to our rooms, I decided to stop by the bathroom before bed. An innocent enough action, I had thought. That was a mistake. One that almost cost me my life.


	2. Chapter 2

_ A trio of mirrors, reflecting the queen _

_ Her face is empty, her hands are clean _

_ A trio of dominos, one, two, threes _

_ Her hands are stained, but no one sees _

I had just come out of the bathroom stall when I saw them. The murderer. Their hair was long and dark, so generic you could barely tell them apart from the others. Their eyes, poking out of holes in the pillowcase mask, were blue. A pale, icy, innocent blue, so blue that you couldn’t spot the darkness unless you knew to look. A kitchen knife, like the one you might use to chop vegetables, was grasped in their trembling hand. Their fingertips were covered by their sleeves because there were no gloves here. 

I stared, too terrified to stop them. I couldn’t move. Hell, I couldn’t breathe. 

The glass broke, shattering onto the tile floor. Shards dug into my arms, into their arms, sending scarlet rivers trickling onto the floor. They moved, and, against my own will, I followed. My footsteps were reverberant in the deserted hallways. The only other sounds were the pounding of my heart and the occasional clatter of the blade against the wall.

Their chosen room trailed at the end of the hall. So far away from others that their screams wouldn’t be detected. I heard them loud and clear, and I wished I hadn’t. They were soft, muffled, as the victim had woken up long enough to feel the knife being thrust into their chest.

They were hesitant with the first stab. I had been told that would happen. But, with time, it became less of a massacre and more of a game to them.

I pressed myself against the wall as they retreated from the room. My legs quivered as their eyes swept over me. They passed by me without a second glance.

I waited after they left, frozen in the same position. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. A minute.

An hour.

Once I knew they wouldn’t return. I rushed over to the body. My hands and wrists were sticky with blood. Some of it belonged to me. I hovered over the corpse longer than I should have, grieving for the person I had never met. I never knew their name, but I would find out by morning. As the sun rose, I dragged myself back into my room. I washed the blood from my hands and plucked the shards from my wrists, acting as if nothing had happened. If you knew the killer’s identity, it made you a target. The eliminations had begun.

Not for Carisse. Carisse would never see it. She was the first victim, the one whose sheets I had stained with my tears. 

She had no funeral, no burial. I watched as they sent her body into the back room, and we never heard anything. A few other early risers shed tears, but most were too focused on themselves to care. Or still asleep.

Lucky.

“Who do you think will be next?” Elia whispered to me. I shrugged. No one expected the killer to be this hasty. 

At breakfast, there were no casual conversations. No icebreakers or friendly hellos. Everyone eyed their neighbor with distrust as if they were responsible for all that had occurred. We all waited for the spy’s report, our eyes glued to the screen at the front of the room.

After a few minutes without an update, I tore my eyes away from the front. No one noticed as I left early, racing back to my room to see if I could get a better signal on my computer. Elia burst in as I closed my lid. “Avi, where were you? The spy is dead. We got, uh- a message from the killer.”

I straightened. “What did it say?” 

“Just what I told you. The spy is dead, we’re next.” She sounded like she had found out we had a test, and she didn’t study. 

“How did the murderer know who the spy was on the first day?” My hands shook with nerves. I was not ready for this. Not yet.

“I don’t know, but I’m not betting much on my chances of survival. Oh my god, I can’t believe you missed it.” Elia shut the door to my room quietly, so she didn’t startle anyone. “What are you doing here?”

“I tried to see if I could get a better signal, but I can’t even open the broadcaster. Guess it’s no use now.” I sighed. “After what happened to Carisse, I don’t think anyone’s going to sleep tonight.”

Elia nodded in agreement but said nothing. 

“With the spy gone, who’s going to find the killer?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Elia tiptoed out of my room and slid the door shut, leaving me to my privacy. I would have never known Carisse was the spy. She was the girl in front of me in line that I had almost forgotten. She was shy and soft, easily frightened, and easy to miss. She was around the same height as everyone else, but she slumped so much that you couldn’t tell. Her skin appeared a bit off, a little too smooth and shiny. Carisse’s room was number one, the furthest away from mine. I shouldn’t have been dwelling on her loss. There were many more to come.

The spy couldn’t win. That couldn’t happen now. That wouldn’t happen. The murderer would win.

“Avi. Avi.” Elia hollered as she sprinted through the halls at top speed. “I have an idea.”

I paused in wandering the building (moving targets were harder to kill) and turned to face her. She skidded to a stop millimeters from my nose. “I have an idea.” She gasped, struggling for breath.

“I heard,” I said. “So did half the complex.”

“Sorry.” Elia’s shame dissipated within seconds “Anyway, back to the idea. What if we made a detectives club?”

“A what?” My brow knitted together in confusion.

“A detective club. You know, a group of people who are good at solving things. Since the spy is gone, we might have to do the investigating ourselves.” Elia’s words tumbled over each other in her excitement.

I swallowed. “That- that’s a great idea.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” Elia motioned to my blank face.

“No.” I pinned a grin onto my face. “I think that’s awesome. But how would you recruit people?”

“Didn’t you take coding in school? Maybe you could hack into the projector thingy during breakfast tomorrow.” Elia twirled and jumped on the tile floors as she spoke.

I sighed. “I don’t think they would make it that easy to get into the tech. Considering that this is supposed to be a challenge. You could talk about it during dinner tonight.” 

Elia’s face fell. “If I bring up the idea, I have to lead it. I’m not good at snooping.”

“I’ll check if I can get into the projector, but I doubt it.”

“Ok.” Elia looked at the floor. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s ok.” I gave her a halfhearted smile. “It’s a good idea.”

I continued around the corner and paused in front of the kitchen door. My fingers closed around the lockpick. I slid the door open and crept into the deserted kitchen. The tiled floors and cinder-block walls were kept spotless, unlike the rest of the complex. My eyes darted from stacks of recipe books to the bottles labeled ‘Kloryn’ to the array of knives adhered to the wall. Two knives were already missing.

I had taken a miniature one first but had lost it. I took the second-largest blade. I don't know why I had bothered with the tiny one. It wasn’t much use in a fight. And it wasn’t like I was going to be slitting anyone’s throat with it.

I tiptoed out of the room and shut the door with a soft thud. I made my way to the gym. The mats that resided there could make excellent sheaths.

Dinner was scarily quiet. I caught one of the cafeteria ladies glaring at me like I had stabbed someone. She probably thought I had. They had security cameras everywhere. I couldn’t get into them, but the Superiors and their servants could. I was glad that the spy died first. It filled me with shame to be grateful for another’s death, but at least I didn’t kill them. This was boring. The suspense felt like it was suffocating me.

A girl named Ciarre walked past me on the way out. I spotted a small dot embedded in her neck, so tiny that you couldn’t find it if you tried. Her light brown curls almost concealed it. It was blinking between green and red. As I watched, the light sped up. Ciarre scratched her shoulder, oblivious to my staring. A countdown. The faster it was, the closer it was to… what?

I saw them. Again. Their hair had been pulled up this time, and the weapon was still stained with Carisse’s blood. I didn’t scream. I couldn’t.

The air was heavy that morning. Another died. I had predicted as much. I should have told someone that I saw them again. Maybe they could have predicted who would die. It was Ciarre. The girl with the timer on her neck. I had checked my limbs for one but found nothing.

Another message from the killer, I assumed, had been pasted onto the screen in front of the room. The bold, blocky text alternated between red and white, the work of a beginning hacker. “The real killer is dead. You are helpless.” It read. So you could hack into the projector. I hadn’t believed it until I saw it. I sprinted out of the cafeteria and down the hallways. Olive’s eyes trailed behind me as I ran.

When I came back, another message appeared on the screen. This one was properly formatted and masterful, less likely to induce a seizure. 

“If you want to solve this, meet in the art room.” 

Others had seen the message before me and talked among themselves in hushed voices. Soon enough, the first one disappeared down the hall. Many others followed. After the first four were out of sight, I trailed behind as the fifth. The door slid shut as I reached it. It pulled itself open again, both for myself and those behind me. 

Faire stood at the front of the room, having appointed herself as leader of this motley investigation crew. I settled into one of the seats that were arranged in a circle before I arrived. I counted them off. Twelve, excluding myself. A pitiful number. Everyone else was too paranoid about making themselves a target.

Faire, Kali, Ceanne, Otakairre, Tourri, Carmen, Alice, Anomia, Clairisse, Alumni, Bayli, and Muyin. I listed off the names in my head. Each one might as well have pinned a target on their back. Even me.

Faire cleared her throat. “First of all, who set this up?”

The room went silent. I shuffled my hands. If no one volunteered soon, they would spend more time investigating that than the deaths. My breaths were deafening in the suffocating silence.

“Does it matter? We’re all here now.” Anomia spoke up.

Faire nodded. With her dark skin tone, she was easy to pick out in a crowd. “True. Let’s get started.” When no one objected to her leadership, Faire stood up and brushed her short black hair out of her eyes. I let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Has anyone seen the killer?” I kept my hands glued to my lap. “No one? Who chose a security camera?” Four cautious hands went up. “Set that up tonight. Your life might depend on it.” Faire had a plan from the second she walked in here. With her in charge, the murderer didn’t stand a chance of winning.

“Does anyone know how to fight?” Two people raised their hands, Carmen and Muyin. Self-defense and first aid were both classes that were available at school, but most people dismissed them in favor of more specialized subjects. For instance, Faire had taken criminology and Elia had taken cooking. I had done research last night on everyone that was here. 

“First aid, anyone?”

One hand, rising above the others. Alice. Faire nodded. “I want someone patrolling every hall each night. We want to stop this before anyone else gets hurt. We’ll take it in shifts.” Faire barked orders around the room. “Does anyone volunteer to take the first shifts tonight? Preferably someone who slept last night.” She indicated the dark circles hovering under many of our eyes. I glanced down. She was picking on me. It wasn't my fault that the voices wouldn't stop whispering and screaming until my head felt like it would explode.

“Alumni, if I am… unable to be present, I would like you to take over.” Faire motioned to the quiet Indian girl. Alumni didn’t talk much, but when she did, people listened. Multiple groans echoed throughout the room at Faire’s final proclamation, but no one had a better candidate.

The art room erupted into nervous chatter while Faire wrote down everyone’s shift assignments on a notepad. 

“I wonder who did it.” 

“Maybe it was Olive. She took coding.”

“What about Zalia? I saw her leave the room early last night.”

“It could be Avi. She’s smarter than we know.”

The last inquiry was spoken by Faire, who had rejoined the conversation. 

I shivered. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It couldn’t be her,” Carmen jumped to my defense. “She didn’t choose a weapon as her tool. You can’t exactly bludgeon someone with a computer.”

Faire nodded. “That’s right. That narrows the investigation down to those who did.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Bayli joined in, twirling a lock of brown hair around her finger. “You’re forgetting the bonus weapons. Someone could steal those as well.”

Faire sighed. “Back to square one.”

I tried to connect the dots in my head. There was a computer lab that was open from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. It had five computers (which were even older than mine) and usually, no one used it. Considering that lockpicks were included in every single room, anyone could break in after hours and get into the projector. The projector was an older model with a separate device that controlled it. Hacking was a skill anyone could learn, There was no way to narrow it down. 

The only people that couldn’t be murderers were Ciarre and Carisse. And they were dead. 


	3. Chapter 3

_ Ring around the rosies _

_ Pockets full of posies _

_ Ashes, ashes _

_ It all burns down _

“Hey, everyone,” Faire called. “I’m going to print out the schedule tonight, and I’ll get it to you by morning. Can I borrow someone’s computer?” She took a step back, almost tripping over her chair.

I raised my hand. “You can use mine.” My voice trembled in the still air.

Faire nodded. “Thank you. I’m in room forty-three. We’ll meet back here tomorrow after dinner if that’s ok with everyone.” She looked like she expected applause, but no one noticed that she had spoken.

Everyone filed out of the room. I slipped into the line after Carmen. I noticed Vigria slipping into the bathroom, only to evacuate it immediately, face pale with disgust. I guess they didn’t clean the blood.

When I reached my room, the door unlocked with my fingertips. I had modified the lock so that it could not be picked. My room remained as I had left it, with my rumpled clothes tossed into one corner and my charger cord stretching across the room like a tripwire. Elia knocked on my door as I packed up my computer for Faire. “Come in,” I said.

“I can’t, it’s locked.”

“Oh.” The computer rebounded as I dropped it on the bed. I pulled the door open. 

“Did you post that message?” Elia bounded in circles around my room. 

I shook my head. “No. I guess someone else had the same idea as you.” 

Elia’s face fell. “What did you do there, anyway?” 

“Made some schedules for patrols. Faire needs my computer to print it out.” I wrapped the charger cord around the laptop.

“Can I come to help you drop it off? I’m so bored.” Elia wiggled her feet as she bounced on my bed. If I hadn’t seen her information, I would have thought she was a child.

“People are dying. How are you bored?” I grabbed the box with the device inside and dragged Elia outside with me. Faire’s room resided in the other hallway, neighboring the center of the hallway. She opened the door with wet hair and sweatpants. Faire was a bit on the chubby side, but no one cared. Besides, they had treatments to cure that.

“Thank you.” She took the box from my arms. “Geez, that’s heavy.” Faire staggered from the weight. 

“Do you need me to help?” Elia was way too eager to do something. 

“No, I’m good.” Faire smiled at her. 

“When are you planning to print out the sheets?” I asked.

“Later tonight, so I don’t bump into anyone.” Faire didn’t appear worried, but I was. She would be in the printer room. Late at night. Alone and defenseless. I thought about warning her to bring her weapon but decided against it. I didn’t want to make her paranoid too. Besides, she had chosen a security camera. 

Faire must have seen the anxious expression on my face because she added, “Don’t worry. If anyone comes in I’ll whip them with this.” She held up the charger cable. 

I forced a laugh. “Yeah.” 

“Well, I’m gonna go in now. Thanks again.” Faire closed the door.

I snuck back into my room. I couldn’t save her.

The printer room was cold and dimly lit. Faire saw the killer before I saw her. Lucky. The charger cord struck their arm. I almost cried out as the knife struck Faire’s head.

So much for going to sleep. “Avi, are you okay? You look awful.” Elia peppered me with concerns as soon as I exited my room the next morning.

“I’m fine, just tired.” I flinched as Elia grabbed my hand. She trailed her free hand against the wall as we walked, tracing paths in the beige cinder block. She was clingy, but I couldn’t blame her. As we reached the center of the hallway, I scanned for Faire. “Where’s Faire?” I mused aloud.

“She-she probably slept in.” Elia’s voice quivered, and she tightened her grip on my forearm. I winced as her nails burrowed into me. She had taken a pen from the desk in her room and scribbled flowers and stars and hearts onto each of her nails.

“I should wake her up. I’m going to need my computer back.” I gravitated towards Faire’s room.

“No.” Elia grabbed my sleeve. I opened my mouth to object, but she was faster. “I’ll come with you.”

“Ok…” I shoved Faire’s door open. She wasn’t there. Elia’s miniature feet padded across the carpet.

“She’s not here. Maybe she already went to breakfast?” Elia sounded like she was trying to reassure herself as well as me.

“The printing room. She went there last night.” 

“The what?” Elia didn’t have time to say anything else before I dragged her across the halls. The door to the printing room was closed and locked. It took me a few minutes to unlock it, as someone had secured a padlock over it as well. I entered first and paused in the doorway. The room smelled like death. The stench asphyxiated me as I tiptoed around the room. Elia darted down the other direction. I waited. One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

She screamed.

“Avi… Avi…” Her breaths were ragged and shaky.

“Elia? Where are you?” I regretted going over to comfort her the instant I saw the scene. Faire’s limbs spread out on the floor, blood still seeping from the wound in her head. My laptop lay forgotten on the floor, with the schedule still pulled up on its cracked screen.

“Faire- she’s-” Elia’s voice broke. 

“...Dead.” I finished, wincing as Elia squeezed my hand with the force of a trash compactor.

I should have been more surprised. I should have been terrified. I was, but I had anticipated this. Faire ventured out by herself, and this was the consequence. If only I had done something. Told someone, followed her in there. I could’ve defended her.

“Avi?” Elia whispered. “Should we go tell them?” Her voice was strained. Teardrops were pooling in her eyes and spilling over onto her cheeks.

“Yeah.” I stumbled towards the exit. “Yeah, we should go tell them.”

When we reached the cafeteria, we were met with suspicion. However, it evaporated once they saw the tears glistening on Elia’s face.

“What happened?” Reni asked.

“Faire-” Elia choked before she could get the words out.

“Uh.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “Faire’s dead.” Everyone knew what I was going to say before the words came out of my mouth. Faire was not just another Innocent. Without her, the investigation could crumble into shambles. 

I slid into a seat at the back of the room. Olive glared at me from across the room, as if I’d spited her by revealing that someone died.

After breakfast finished, Alumni called everyone into the art room for an emergency detective meeting. “If you’re going to have a mental breakdown, go outside. We need to solve this before our numbers dwindle even further, and sobbing doesn’t do anything to help.” Alumni sounded surprisingly confident for someone as shy as she was. She had a long black braid that ran down her back like a waterfall and she often utilized it to cover her face. “Avi. Faire typed the schedule on your computer. Go get that, and we’ll take it from there.” I made a mental note to recruit her for the zombie apocalypse.

I slipped out of the room and into the printing room without confirming the order. 

The computer was spotless as if the killer had decided to leave the device unscathed. The schedule had been laid out for an entire week before it halted.

I slipped into the bathroom before I headed back. The doors and walls were coated with graffiti from various generations of doomed girls. The messages ranged from comforting remarks to words my parents would never allow me to say. I opened the second stall, ignoring the middle finger doodled on the door.

There was a body. Naom’s body.

There was a dead body in the bathroom stall.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, backing away. This wasn’t happening. This was not happening. “Not today. Not again.” My fingers dug into my scalp. I collapsed against the leaky sink. The murderer had been busy last night.

It seemed like hours until my thoughts arranged themselves into a comprehensible sequence. Travel back to the club room with the laptop. Show them the schedule. Say nothing.

After the meeting concluded, they noticed it. Karnae, this time. Her screams echoed through the halls. I clenched my hands into fists until my fingernails carved deep grooves in my palms. 

My fault. All my fault.

At some point, while I walked back, Olive appeared out of nowhere like a killer clown. “Oh. Hi.” I snapped. 

“Sorry.” Olive winced at my harsh tone. “So… I saw you entered the bathroom after collecting your computer. That bathroom.” She pointed to the one Karnae had emerged from.

“Yeah, stalker. So?” This felt like an accusation.

“So you either saw the body first or killed her.” Olive sounded so proud of herself like she had solved the mystery of the ages.

“Great observation, Nancy Drew,” I deadpanned. Olive flinched as our shoulders brushed together. “I didn’t want to find too many bodies, it’d look suspicious.”

“But… it’s kind of your job,” Olive cried.

“Oh, really?” I rolled my eyes. “Where’s my paycheck?”

Olive cracked a smile at that. “Fair point.”

“If you’re so interested in detective work, why don’t you join the investigators?” I asked. It seemed like a logical decision to me.

Olive’s face fell. “I prefer to work alone, that’s all.” She sounded defensive about it.

I shrugged. “Can’t say I blame you.”

“So… sorry about the whole interrogation thing.” Olive didn’t look the slightest bit sorry.

“It’s fine. Next time, wait until lunch to accuse me of homicide.” The sooner this was over, the better.

I opened the door to my room and shut it with an ear-shattering slam. I placed my computer on my bed and logged in. They left the schedule open, modified to allow for backup if someone unexpectedly died. Not like you ever expected someone to die.

I was set to patrol the main hall (home to the rooms that were not residential) tomorrow night. Lunch wasn’t for a few more hours, so I had time to kill.

The cafeteria was the least likely place I expected someone to go. After a few meals, it began to smell like a concoction of fifteen different foods. Despite this, I still smelled it. The stench of a corpse leaked from a supply closet in the back of the cafeteria. As I got closer, I noticed a puddle of fresh blood on the door.

I winced as the door handle squeaked when I turned it. I gagged instantaneously as a wave of stink washed over me. The body hadn’t been there for long, else we would have discovered it during breakfast. The relative freshness didn’t make it any less horrifying. I almost wished I didn’t recognize the victim. Elvise. Her stringy blonde hair spread out across the floor like a cruel imitation of a mop. 

I stumbled over my shoes. I had taken to wearing a pair of combat boots they provided us, for no logical reason. I sprinted away from the demonic closet and into the common room. A sizable crowd had gathered there and were now lounging on the various couches or the carpet. I slipped onto the floor next to Alumni, who was doodling robots on a small green notepad. 

“Hey.” I tapped her on the shoulder. She whipped around, wielding the dull pencil like a weapon. I flinched.

Heat crept up Alumni’s cheeks. “What’s going on?”

“Uhm.” I struggled for words. I couldn’t think of a method of delivering this information that wouldn’t cause immediate emotional distress. “Elvise died.” 

“What?” Alumni exclaimed. “She’s-” She paused when she saw everyone staring at her. “She’s dead?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. 

I nodded uncertainly. “Should we gather up the investigators? It would be a good idea to check out the scene before anyone else tampers with it.”

Alumni nodded to Tourri. “Investigators, Cafeteria. Confidential.”

“Can all the investigators meet in the cafeteria, please?” Tourri’s words weren’t aggressive, but the volume made them sound threatening. She had bleached streaks in her dark curls, contrasting with her skin tone.

A worm of girls made their way to the cafeteria. I noticed, annoyed, that a few of them hadn’t been to any of our meetings. After a few minutes of awkward standing, Alumni made her way to my side. “Where’s the body?”

“I don’t know. It was right here.”

“It’s gotta be here somewhere. I can already smell it.” Alumni faked a loud gagging sound. I allowed myself a smile.

All of a sudden, Ceanne shrieked. Louder than I anticipated. I clapped my hands over my ears but realized that it wouldn’t help. Alumni rushed over to Ceanne, only to tumble over her own feet and stumble against me. I caught her and pushed her upright. She continued running towards Ceanne, ignoring the panicked shouts of some of the tagalongs. I bit my lip to see how she would react. I didn’t want to hear any more screams. 

Alumni’s face froze for a millisecond. “Move back.” Otakairre and others jogged backward, away from the mess. Alumni organized the mass of girls with surprising precision. She sent me (along with Muyin, Kali, and Clairisse) back to our rooms so we didn’t crowd the crime scene. “Too many hands.” She ordered. As we snuck back to the rest of the complex, I spotted something on the floor. A bloody footprint.

Boots.


	4. Chapter 4

_Ghosts aren’t real, they’re just in your head_

_Monsters aren’t real, they’re just under your bed_

_Humans aren’t real, just kill them instead_

_You aren’t real, it’s all in my head_

I paused in my tracks. “Hey, uh.” I tugged on Clairisse’s sleeve. “What’s that?”

“Looks like a footprint.” Clairisse peered over my shoulder at the gore.

“No shit, Sherlock.” Kali sauntered over to us, almost smearing the footprint in the process. The color was already fading from her two-toned hair. 

“If you’re so smart, whose is it?”Clairisse snapped.

“Look like hers.” It took me a minute to realize that Kali’s reddish-brown finger pointed at me. 

I checked the bottoms of my shoes. “There’s no blood on here.” 

“Who else here wears boots?” Muyin and Clairisse were standing a good distance away from the evidence, while Kali got so close to it her hoop earrings were almost brushing the floor. 

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Should we report this back to Alumni?”

“No,” Kali snapped.

“Why not?” Clairisse sprinted towards the throng that was investigating the main scene. I followed after her, being sure not to step in any blood. 

When we reached the crowd, Alumni stood off to the side of the body with the few remaining investigators. She had her notepad again and was scrawling down possible weapons and crossing them off. “Alumni,” Clairisse called. “We found a footprint.”

Alumni’s eyes brightened. “Where?”

“Down the hall.” Clairisse pointed to where Kali was sulking. 

“It’s a boot print, like mine.” I lifted my foot to reveal the pattern on the bottom of my shoe. Alumni’s eyes narrowed. 

“Do you know anyone else who wears boots like yours?”

“If it's a boot print, couldn’t it be her?” Muyi spoke up, pointing to me. Her indigo pigtails swished as she moved.

“She was in the common room when this was imprinted. The murderer came back and hid the body, stepping in the evidence on their way out.”

“That means that everyone in the common room couldn’t have done it,” Clairisse concluded, piggybacking off of Alumni’s breakthrough. 

“I have a list of everyone in the game on my computer.” I smiled at the opportunity to be useful, though it felt hollow.

“Can we all go to your room to copy it down?” Alumni held up her notebook.

I hesitated. “Uh, sure. I’m in room one hundred.” Kali glowered at Clairisse and Alumni while we traveled.

My room was a mess of rumpled clothes hastily tossed in the laundry bin, and my sheets were strewn about on my bed. “Sorry, it’s a bit disheveled.” I bit my lip. Maybe I should’ve picked up before I invited them in. Alumni glanced around the room. 

“It’s fine.” She flopped onto the bed. I reached under the bed and took out the laptop. 

“How do you type so quickly?” Clairisse gawked at my jagged nails. I shrugged and switched to the alphabetical list of players. Alumni scribbled down the one hundred names in her messy cursive. She crossed off names as she wrote, and I breathed a sigh of relief when she removed mine. 

Muyin searched around my room, peering in every single drawer. Her ombre pigtails faded from blue to pink at the tips and stood out like a sore thumb in a crowd. I winced as she opened the drawer that I had used to stash the tiny knife. Her eyebrows rose, but she closed the drawer and continued without alerting anyone else.

A dumb move on her part, but I wasn’t complaining. 

“Done.” Alumni slammed my laptop shut. “If you all could try and find all of the people that wear boots, we could eliminate more people.”

“Kali wears boots,” Clairisse added.

“But she was in the common room when it happened.” Alumni pointed to Kali’s crossed-off name. “Do either one of you know who was in the common room during the murder? We can eliminate them.”

“Kali, Ceanne, Anomia, Kishay, Maline, Hayli, Indiga, Clairisse, Quia, Karlia, Emera, Shaybelle, Aspen, Valki, Dustine, Andromeda, Mickaelly, Pranshi, Carmen, Kendrive, Shanninne, Formairre, Rubi, Tourri, Alumni, and Motuwe. And me.” I listed off. 

Alumni’s eyes widened. “Can you repeat that?”

I repeated the names as Alumni scratched them off. “How did you know that?” Muyin had sprung up at Alumni’s side at some point.

“I looked.” I shoved my hands into my sweatpants pockets. I tended to remember the people. All the faces and the names that were attached to them were effortless to recall. It was the events that I forgot.

“I’m going to go back to my room and try to sort this out.” Alumni slipped out the door, dragging Muyin and Clairisse with her. I flinched when she slammed the door shut.

Five people in and we already found a footprint. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. I waited a few minutes before exiting my room. People gathered in small clumps around the hallway, gossiping and chatting and pointing fingers at no one in particular. 

“Did you see that new movie?”

“Has anyone seen Elvise today?”

“I think it was Ayona.”

“At least now I don’t have any homework.”

I sped up. Not a run, but rapid enough to broadcast that I had somewhere to be. I didn’t desire companionship at my destination. Elvise’s room. Number nineteen. Someone had drawn a shabby gravestone on the door in Sharpie. The lunch bell rang, impeccably timed. After the hall cleared out, I unlocked the door and entered the room. Elvise had maintained the room’s tidiness, keeping her laundry folded in the bin. I brushed aside any guilt for intruding. She was dead. This wasn’t her room anymore.

I picked through her room, trying to find any clues that might lead to the murderer’s identity. I opened the closet. It took me a few seconds to realize the inaccuracy. Her boots were gone. Not ‘gone’ as in shoved into a further corner of the closet. Gone as in someone had thieved them and utilized them to their advantage.

I snuck out of the room, only to come face-to-face with Muyin. I yelped and hid the lockpick behind my back. “Her-her boots are missing.” I stuttered. 

“Maybe we should check that out.” Muyin cocked her head to the side. I had the feeling she was mocking me. “Can I come in?”

“Uh- yeah. It’s not my room.” I pushed the door open and allowed her to enter the room. She peered around the space, taking in the coiled bandages and half-assembled security camera. 

“Does this thing work?” Muyin nudged the device with her foot. I shrugged

“Probably not.” I motioned to the closet. “Her boots should have been in here.”

Muyin followed my finger into the dark recesses of the closet. “Why does this matter?” She glanced behind her as if expecting Elvise’s ghost to choke her at any minute.

“The killer wore boots,” I stated.

“And?”

“Well, now they might have even been theirs, meaning that we can’t eliminate people based on their footwear choices.”

“You got all of that from a pair of missing UGG’s?”

“They’re combat boots. Like mine, see?” I pointed at my feet.

“How do you know she wasn’t wearing them?” Muyin raised an eyebrow in skepticism.

“The slip-ons aren’t here either.” I motioned to another disturbance in the row of shoes. “She wore those at the crime scene.”

“Couldn’t someone have borrowed them?” For such a small package, Muyin had a lot of questions.

I took a minute to consider the possibility. “Everyone has the same shoes, there’s no point.” 

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.” Muyin sounded suspicious of my hard work.

“It just seems kind of weird that they would leave a footprint. If they managed all the other stuff, why would they have been messy on that part?”

“If y’all are done having epiphanies about shoes, it’s time for lunch.” Kali peered in from the doorway, tapping her long nails on the doorframe. 

I jumped. I abandoned the room and followed after Kali. “Are you coming?”

Muyin glanced up. “Yeah, in a minute.”

After I had sat down to eat, it occurred to me that I had never shown Muyin the ids of everyone here. How did she know that it was Elvise’s room? I tried to shake it off, telling myself that I did show her the pictures, but it was useless. Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t ignore it. I had taken criminology in school on the same course as Faire, assuming she hadn’t gone to private school. Though I didn’t remember much, I knew not to overlook this.

When lunch was over, I began to go back to my room when I heard sobbing. “Hello?” I peeked around the corner. I was near a closet, so I opened it. It was Aspen, her golden waves pooled around her feet. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Aspen choked back her tears. “No- it’s fine.” 

“Seriously, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing. I- I miss my family, that’s all.” Aspen used her pale hands, adorned with fingerless gloves, to cover her face. I placed my arm around her shoulders. I hadn’t even thought about my family. I kept myself detached from them, and my being an Undecided had broadened the gap. They weren’t atrocious, at least by my standards.

_Come home at ten._

_No, don’t hang out with her._

_Do this, Avi. Do that, Avi._

_Put down the knife._

_Be nice to your sibling. I don’t care what they did._

_No, Avi. Shake their hands and smile._

_Why can’t you be like your brother?_

And then there was my little brother Caster, who was fourteen. Straight A’s, braces on a set of teeth that didn’t need them, everyone’s golden boy. In my opinion, he was a world-class brat. Maybe a better liar than me, which was saying something.

It wasn’t like we didn’t love each other. We weren’t an awful family, compared to other sob stories on the news. 

I didn’t know what Aspen’s life had been like before she came here, but it had to be better than mine, otherwise, she wouldn’t miss it. I wished I could say something comforting, but the best I could come up with was “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t want to abandon her, but I had better things to do and we weren’t close friends. I shut the door and trekked back to my room. 

I bumped into something as I entered. It took me a moment to realize it was a person, and another second to remember to scream. “Shh, Avi, it’s me.” Elia. Mascara-stained tears ran down her face.

“Geez, you almost gave me a heart attack.” I paused. “Wait, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t think I can take this.” Elia sat down on my floor. “It’s been two days. Two fucking days. Five people died. Five girls. It could have been me.”

If she was expecting comfort, she came to the wrong person. I had the emotional range of a rock. Besides, it couldn’t have been her. All those eliminated were immeasurably important. The spy, the real murderer, the lead detective. Naom had topped her self-defense class, and Elvise had been organizing a team of healers. These deaths weren’t random. They were calculated, planned out. I bit my lip, unsure of what to say. “Uh, if this is any help at all, it couldn’t have been you. The killer is going for important figures, all the leaders.” I stopped. “Not to say you’re not a leader-”

“It’s fine, I’m not offended.” Elia interrupted. “I- I don’t think I can get through another day of this.”

“It’s ok.” I lied. “We can figure it out. We’ll know who the murderer is, then we can protect ourselves.” Maybe even kill them.”

“You really think that?” Elia looked up at me. “That- we could survive this?” The tears brought out the flecks of green in her brown eyes.

“Elia. Of course, I do. Why would I ever lie to you?” I internally winced. I could guarantee nothing, nothing at all. If she had half a brain cell, she wouldn’t put her trust in my words. In my lies.

Elia leaned onto me, putting her head on my lap. I combed my fingers through a lock of hair that had fallen out of her buns. One day, she would realize that I was as powerless as everyone else. I didn’t want to imagine what she would do then. 

Eventually, Elia pulled away and stood up. “It’s time for dinner. Remember?”

I nodded. “Coming.” I slipped my large knife into my pocket, tugging the sheath closer around it. Elia shuddered when she saw it. “I don’t know how to use it, it’s for intimidation.” I elaborated, not that she needed to k

now that.

Elia grabbed my hand and tugged me into the hall. “Come on, I’m hungry.” She seemed to have recovered from her broken state just minutes ago.

“I told you, I’m coming.” I shoved my feet into my boots.

During dinner, someone passed me an invitation. 

Party in Olive’s room

Room 99

9:00 - ????

Come early to help set up

I smiled and turned to Elia, who clutched an invitation of her own. “Are you gonna go?” She chirped.

“Sounds like an excellent opportunity to get stabbed.” 

“So… no?”

“Of course.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not either.”

“Why not?” I took a bite of my sandwich.

“It’s pointless. Why have a party when people are dying?” Elia crumpled up the paper and walked to throw it into the trash. 

While she was gone, I slipped out of the cafeteria. I snuck into the bathroom, ignoring the sniffles of someone in the stall next to me. I hadn’t cried. Not since they first took me. It didn’t seem worth it. Death happened to everyone. 

The running of the sink disguised their weeping for the most part. The mirror was still in shards from that first night. I leaned back against the bloodstained wall, rubbing my eyes. The lack of sleep had begun to catch up with me.

_“You don’t have to do this, you know.”_

I unsheathed my knife and whipped around. No one. The leaky sink dripped steadily, as loud as a freight train. My heart rate tripled. Someone might have figured it all out. The murderer could be in this room.

“ _So focused on defying the Superiors, breaking the system. You don’t need to do any of this._ ”

I winced as a bolt of pain shot through my head. 

“ _Or you could keep going. They’ll keep dying and it’ll get worse. I can still get louder, you know._ ”

I slid down the wall, my knife clattering from my hand. I needed to sleep.

“ _You know that girl in the stall? She’s alone. No defenses, no nothing. Helpless. That’s what you like, huh? You want them to be pathetic and useless so you look that much better. I bet that’s what the Superiors want too._ ” The voice had turned mocking and cruel, ringing in my ears.

In my head. It’s all in my head. I hadn’t known that the side effects of compartmentalized terror included hallucinations. Or whatever the hell this was. Insanity, probably. Or some messed up inner monologue.

“ _Face it, Avi. You’re just like them._ ”

I struggled to breathe. The girl in the other stall had exited now, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Bekia. That was her name. I bit my lip, fighting the urge to scream. 

“ _See? Pathetic. You could kill her. You’ve got a knife. She doesn’t. No one wants to put a camera in the bathroom. You like those odds, don’t you?_ ”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I muttered under my breath.

“Huh?” Bekia turned around, pushing her purple-tipped hair out of her face.

“What?” I had almost forgotten she was there. “Oh- uh, nothing.”

Bekia stepped closer. “Are you crying?”

“No.” I pressed a shaky hand to my cheek. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I am.” So much for not sobbing.

“ _Weakling._ ”

“Is- is that a knife?” Bekia asked. “Who am I kidding, I already know that it is. Is that yours?”

“Um, yes. It’s for self-defense.” 

“ _Self defense, huh? That’s what you want them to think. You little monster, manipulating all of them. I bet you could eliminate your little friend, Elia if given the chance. That little dagger that you say you lost, right through her throat. Killer. Murderer. Psychopath.”_


	5. Chapter 5

_What a perfect little poison_

_It’ll kill you with a taste_

_What a perfect little poison_

_To sprinkle on your plate_

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” I yelled, tearing my fingers through my dark brown hair.

“Me?” Bekia flinched. “Sure, yeah, I can leave right now.”

“No- not you. Definitely not you.” I took a deep breath. She probably thought I had lost my mind. I agreed.

“Who were you talking to?” Bekia squatted down to my level.

“ _Oh, you’ve done it now, haven’t you?_ ”

I cried out as another flash of agony blinded me. 

“Are you okay?” Bekia glanced around.

“Headache.” I motioned to my general cranium area. “I’m sorry. You can leave now.” Please don’t leave, please don’t leave. Don’t leave me alone with this thing in my head.

“I think I’m gonna stay here until you stop screaming. What’s wrong?”

“None of your business.” I snapped.

“ _That’s right. Change the subject._ ”

“Okay, chill out.” Bekia picked up my knife. “Do you want this back or not?”

“No, you can leave it there.” I didn’t trust myself with it.

“ _You want the knife. It’s not the right one, but you still want it._ ”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I think I’m okay now. I’m gonna go back to my room.” I lied through my teeth.

“Ok.” Bekia waited for a few seconds. “Aren’t you gonna go?”

If I could stand, you would think I would have by now. “Uh, eventually.”

“Look, I know we’re not friends, but I need to know if there’s more than one psycho in this place,” Bekia said, biting her lip.

“ _There’s only one, Bekia, and she’s sitting right in front of you._ ”

“Hopefully, there’s one.”

“I need more than that. If you’re not insane, I can help you. If you are, I will pick up that knife.”

“I swear, I’m not crazy. I haven’t been sleeping well, and now I’m hearing things and…“

“ _Liar. It’s guilt, that’s what it is. You regret it, don’t you? Pathetic._

“And what?” Bekia asked. I didn’t understand why she was still here. She could have left at any time.

“Nothing, but whatever kind of fucked up internal monologue this is, it won’t shut up. And it keeps talking to me like it’s my fault. Like I killed them.” I winced. “Oh, now you think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“If I thought you were crazy, I would’ve left by now.” Bekia laughed.

I snorted, although it sounded more like a sniffle. Guess I had gotten lucky that it was her in here and not someone crueler. “Can you, um, help me up?”

“Uh, sure.” Bekia yanked on my arm, pulling me onto my feet. I blinked. 

“Thank you so much, for, uh, tolerating me.”

“You don’t have to thank me for being a decent human being.”

“You’d be surprised how many people would have left me there.” I reached down and picked up the knife, shoving it back into its sheath. 

“Do you need me to help you back to your room?”

“I mean, if it’s not an issue for you, yeah. I probably need it anyway.” 

“ _Oh, you clever little thing. This gives you an alibi, doesn’t it? And Bekia can back it up for you, isn’t that nice and convenient?_ ”

No matter how awful the voice’s mutterings were, they had a point. 

“Where’s your room?” Bekia asked.

“Uh, this way.” I pointed down the hallway. 

“Come on. Let’s get you back to your room.” Bekia tugged on my limp arm, pulling me in the direction I had indicated. “So, like, what’s your story, or whatever? I know it’s weird to ask, but, you know… ok, it’s just weird.”

“Well, uh, I took advanced stuff in school. My boyfriend did most of the work, though.” I began. 

“No, don’t talk about school. None of us are ever gonna make it back there. I’m talking about here. If you’re, uh, hearing things, there’s got to be a bit of an explanation.” Bekia didn’t seem to have an ulterior motive, as far I could tell. 

“I have a computer as the thing that we selected to help us. Oh, I’ve seen two bodies.”

_“Liar. You’ve seen more than that.”_

“That explains it a bit,” Bekia said.

“I guess I’m unlucky.” I stopped in front of my room. “This is my room.”

“Oh. I’ll see you later.” Bekia gave me an uncertain wave. “Have a nice nap. I hope you- uh- get better?”

“Where are you gonna go?” I asked.

“Back to my room. I don’t like parties.”

I cheered inside my head. “So, can you, um, not tell anyone about…” I made a circular motion by my head. 

“No problem.” Bekia shrugged.

Thanks.” I shut the door. She was nice. Like, really nice. I hoped I could trust her. I flopped down onto my bed and checked under my pillow. A few more minutes and I could go. I couldn’t leave immediately, Bekia might still be in the halls.

“ _Don’t want to compromise your precious alibi, do you?”_

“Shut up,” I muttered.

Olive’s room was empty when I knocked on her door. They must have all left to take a break. Perfect opportunity for a little reconnaissance.

Before I went back to my room, I snuck back into the kitchen to see if any knives were returned. The murderer could have put their weapons back. 

Nope. The same ones were missing. They were all gone. One in my hands, and nine in someone else’s. I began to leave before I noticed something. The poison had disappeared. Not a single vial was left untouched, and there had been an ample amount of it. Someone took it. Someone else knew it about it. 

“ _No one else knows about, do they?_ ”

This gave me nothing. I couldn’t figure out anything, besides that someone here had Kloryn. Maybe a bystander took it, so they could assassinate the killer without getting their hands dirty.

The party. Olive’s party.

Olive had fruit punch in there. I had spotted a glimpse of it from outside. Kloryn was a new, lethal neurotoxin that was capable of stopping all brain functions, causing victims to ‘drop dead.’ We learned the basic information about it in school, as it had been considered a scientific breakthrough. A milligram of Kloryn would kill you. No one would suspect a thing. It was designed to look and taste like sugar.

No, no, no. They wouldn’t do that. Whomever this killer was, they had proven they were more intelligent than that. Slipping toxins into someone’s drink seemed a bit out of character. Not to mention a good way to get caught. Alumni’s room was number seventeen. I cautiously knocked on the door. Alumni pulled it open. She’d taken her wavy hair out of its braid, and it fell to the bottom of her back. “Hi, Avi. What’s up?”

“Alumni, I think there’s something wrong with the party.”

“Oh, it’s about detective stuff.” Alumni’s smile fell. “Well, come on in. What is it?”

“There was Kloryn in the kitchen. I saw it when I got this.” I held up my sheathed knife. “But now it’s gone. Does Olive have any food at the party?”

“ _You already know that, liar._ ”

“Kali said there was fruit punch in there. I don’t understand where Olive got it, but it’d be pretty easy to slip some Kloryn in there.” Alumni flipped open her notebook to the suspect list and put a star next to Olive’s name. She glanced at her watch. “The party’s been going on for about an hour now.”

“Should we go and…” I let out a humongous yawn. “And warn them?”

“You should go to bed. We can’t have our detective force falling apart. I’ll check it out.” Alumni pulled her shoes on and ushered me out the door.

“ _You do realize this compromises your alibi, don’t you?”_

“One person won’t make a difference,” I whispered under my breath. 

I’m lying on a couch in a house I don’t recognize. It’s a party. 

“Oh, thank god you’re awake.” I don’t recognize the voice. “You passed out, we didn’t if you were okay.” Olive. That’s who it is. 

I sit up, realizing what I’m wearing. An old-timey ballgown, complete with petticoats and a corset. My lungs protest as it squeezes my ribcage. Olive grabs my hand, wearing a primary-colored dress. “Come on, let’s party.” She leads me onto the dance floor and hands me a cup of punch.

The lights go out. The glass shatters, and someone screams. 

When they come back on, the room is empty. Well, not empty. There are bodies all over the floor, punch spilling on the carpet. Kloryn.

I step over a corpse and glance around. “Hello? Is anyone there?” Wrappers crinkle under my feet as I walk. Music still blares from the speakers. I turn it off, just in time to hear footsteps behind me.

Hands reach for my corset laces, yanking on them and pulling me backward. Black spots flicker in front of my vision. Someone catches me as I fall backward. I’m half-unconscious, but I still see them pouring punch into my mouth. 

I woke up the next morning to someone knocking at my door. “Hello?” I murmured, rolling off the side of my bed.

“Avi. Thank goodness you’re awake,” Elia said.

“What happened?” I changed out of my pajamas and opened the door.

“Nothing yet, but you’re gonna be late for breakfast.”

I sighed. “I’m gonna brush my teeth, and I’ll be right out.”

“Can I come in?” 

“Um, sure. It’ll only be a minute.” I frantically scrubbed my teeth and brushed my hair before breakfast finished. 

“What’s this for?” Elia picked up my knife.

“Self-defense.” I opened my door, only to be met by Bekia. I hadn’t gotten a clear view of her last night, and it took me a minute to recognize her. She was slim, with tan skin and tangled brown curls.

“Um, hi.” Bekia’s eyes shifted downward. “Do you, uh, want to walk to breakfast together?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Elia, are you coming?”

Bekia’s face fell at the sight of Elia, but she didn’t complain and started walking. “So…” She began. “Are you…?”

“I’m okay.” I gave her a half-smile. Truthfully, my head was pounding, and I wished I could go back to bed. 

When we reached the cafeteria, I immediately noticed that something was wrong. There were too many empty seats. Considering that we were late, almost everyone should have been there. Zalia, Kishay, Hayli, Grasia, Kali, Nevada, Quia. and Karlia. Eight girls.

“ _Eight dead in one day, what a pleasant surprise._ ”

“Avi?” Elia whispered. “Where is everyone?”

“Why are you asking me?” I snapped, more defensively than I intended.

“Maybe they slept in after the party,” Bekia answered for me. “Someone could’ve spiked the punch.”

The memory of Kloryn crashed down in my mind. It was my fault. All my fault. Always my fault.

“ _Faire was right. You are smarter than they know_.”

Not again. “Leave me alone,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

“Avi, what’s wrong?” Bekia pulled Elia and me into chairs.

“Nothing.” I paused and reconsidered. “Well, actually, there is something wrong. So, you know when I went into the kitchen to get this?” I indicated to the imprint of my knife, concealed by my pocket. “There was Kloryn in there. A lot of it.”

“Kloryn? Never heard of it,” Bekia said.

“Oh, I know.” Elia bounced up and down in her seat. “We learned about it in school. It’s… It’s a…” Her smile faltered. “....a poison.”

“Do you think they snuck some of that into the punch?” Bekia asked. 

I nodded. “I told Alumni about what I suspected, but the party had already started.”

“I thought you were gonna go to bed,” Bekia said.

I winced. “I did, but I went to the kitchen first to swap this out for something else-with better protection.” I pointed to my knife again. “That’s when I noticed it was gone.” I kicked myself for caring about what she thought of me.

“All of it?” Elia stammered.

“All of it,” I confirmed.

Bekia yanked us up. “Hurry up, we have to tell Alumni. Let’s see if she warned them in time.” 

I spotted Alumni’s short figure in the crowd. “Hey, Alumni,” Elia followed my gaze. I winced at her volume. “Come here.”

“Huh?” Alumni glanced up. “Oh, ok.” She shoved her way toward us. 

“Alumni, what happened?” I asked.

“Everything was fine when I checked last night,” Alumni said. “They hadn’t opened the second pitcher yet, so it could have been in there.”

“It has to have been someone else at the party. Someone who survived.” Bekia concluded.

“Or someone who was setting up.” I turned to Elia, who had been surprisingly quiet this whole time. “What do you think?”

“I think it was Olive,” Elia whispered. 

Alumni nodded in agreement. “She could have poisoned the drinks before anyone got there.”

It couldn’t be Olive, I knew that. She had blonde hair. “Is she still alive?” I asked.

“I think so,” Bekia said. 

“What do we know about her? And more importantly, what do we do about her?” Alumni asked.

“She’s in room ninety-nine, across from mine. She has a computer too.”

“After breakfast, we need to call an emergency detective meeting,” Alumni ordered.

“Why not now?” I asked.

“Do you think stopping them in the middle of breakfast is gonna improve morale?” Alumni reasoned. “Can you hack into the projector?” She pointed to me.

“I can try. You should get Tourri to call it out as well. Also, see how many people went to the party and survived.”

“Who’s Tourri?” Bekia asked, but Alumni was already gone. “Are you gonna go to the projector?” She turned to me.

“Oh, right. Do you want to come?” I pointed to Elia.

“Sure.” Elia smiled. Bekia sighed but didn’t object. “Where are we going?” Elia chirped.

“Projector room.” I tugged her and Bekia with me.

The projector room already had a computer in it. “Can you hurry up?” Elia groaned. “I’m hungry.”

“Working on it.” I typed lines of code as fast as my fingers would allow me. “There. It should be good now.”

“Come on, then.” Elia yanked on my arm as we walked to our seats, where avocado toast awaited us. My message had already shown up. 

“Looks nice.” Bekia motioned to the message.

“Thanks. Turns out there are quite a few coding tutorials online.” I stood up.

“Where are you going?” Elia asked.

“My room. I’m gonna change before the meeting.” Maybe.

Clattering inside the vents, the dull thumping of limbs on metal. Something in their pockets clinked against their knife. They reached in and took out a bomb. 

When I arrived, the room was empty, excluding Alumni. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re early. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” I sat down to her right.

“Have you seen Ceanne? I know she and Kali were close, and I’m… a bit worried.” Alumni looked down, almost embarrassed.

“No, I haven’t seen her. Why?”

“That means we’re down two members, assuming she’s dead. Kali was set to patrol before you tonight, do you mind taking over her shift, just this once? You’ll leave in the middle of dinner.”

I shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Hi.” Bekia peeked in from the doorway. “Can I, uh, join the club? Is it open?”

Alumni perked up. “Of course.” She turned to me. “Never mind about the extra shift.”

“Shift?” Bekia sat down next to me. 

“For patrols. It was Kali’s, but you know…” She drew a finger across her throat. “So you’ll be patrolling the main hall this evening. Avi is after you.”

“When’s everyone else gonna get here?” I asked again. 

As if on cue, the rest of the detectives trickled in. 

“...eight, nine, ten…” Alumni counted off on her fingers. “Someone else is missing.”

“Anomia,” I whispered. 

“Where’s Anomia?” Alumni struggled to be heard over the chatter. “I said, where’s Anomia?”

“And Ceanne,” Otakairre added.

“What about Kali?” Tourri asked (or rather, shouted). 

“Kali’s dead,” I deadpanned. 

“Oh.” The entire room seemed to deflate at Tourri’s response.

“Is Ceanne dead too? And Anomia?” Muyin directed her inquiry solely at me.

“We don’t know. Does anyone know where they are?” Alumni answered for me. 

“Anomia was still at breakfast when I went to go change.” I provided.

“Ceanne left pretty early, she said she was going back to her room.” I couldn’t spot who had spoken, but it sounded a bit like Alice.

“Kali, we know, is dead. The other two are unsure.” Bekia clarified.

“Wait, when did you get he-” Tourri cut off as something slammed against the door. “Holy freaking- what is that?”

“Oh my god, chill.” Clairisse opened the door. “See? It’s just…Anomia.” Her jaw dropped. “A- Anomia?”


	6. Chapter 6

_ Just another mask _

_ Another game to play _

_ Just another mask _

_ I’ll die anyway _

“What happened?” I gasped. Anomia’s black curls were a mess, and she clutched her shoulder. 

“Oh my god, what happened to your hair?” Tourri exclaimed.

“Her hair? That’s what you’re worried about? There’s blood dripping down her arm.” Muyin pointed to Anomia, who didn’t look too good. 

“ _ This was you, wasn’t it? Too bad, you missed.” _

The room erupted into chaos as everyone swarmed towards Anomia. “Are you okay? Who did this?” Alumni couldn’t get out any more questions before Alice’s hand clamped over her mouth. Anomia dutifully sat down as she drew closer.

Alice whipped an entire first aid kit out of her pocket like others might pull out a weapon. I watched in awe as she pulled Anomia’s shirt off and assessed the wound without so much as grimacing at the blood. Although she did blush a little. It was indeed a stab wound, although worse than I expected. They’d twisted the knife, making a hole instead of an easily closed slit.

Alice must've noticed me staring because she added: “They aimed to kill.” I nodded although, I didn’t see why they wouldn’t. Assuming the murderer did this.

Clairisse burst in, carrying what Alice had requested. 

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.” Anomia cried out as Alice wiped down the wound with the disinfectant. “What are you doing?” Anomia exclaimed. “Stop it.”

I glanced away as Alice pulled a needle and thread out of her kit. “Hold still. I haven’t done this on a real person before,” she muttered.

“Well, that’s encouraging.” Anomia talked way too much for someone who got stabbed. “So you all are completely fine with this neophyte taking a needle to m-”

“Hold still,” Alice snapped.

I winced, expecting some sort of flesh-ripping sound, but all I could hear were Anomia’s complaints every three seconds.

“There. I’m in room 83 if any of them come out. Come back in ten days for me to remove them. You can look now.” She tapped me on the shoulder. In the midst of it all

“Hey, I don’t need more people staring at me.” Anomia said, gingerly slipping her shirt on.

“Did you see who did it?” Otakairre asked.

“I couldn’t see their face, they had a mask on. And they moved too fast for me to identify them.”

“Can you at least give us something? Hair color, height, anything?” Alumni paced back and forth on a single tile.

“Uh, yeah, they had blonde hair.” Anomia shrugged.

I gasped. “But- that’s…”

“What, Avi?” Alumni turned to me. “Do you know anything?”

I hesitated. “I think I’ve seen them too. The first night, in the bathroom. I had to stand on the toilet to see them. But their hair was black, not blonde.” I’d lied a little bit, but no one else had been there, so I was safe.

“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Alumni exclaimed. “That’s crucial information.”

I looked down. “I thought I’d be a target if I knew what they looked like. I’m sorry.” 

“How could you be a target if they didn’t see you?” Muyin glowered at me.

“Oh, that saw me.” My voice trembled. “They saw me, alright.”

“Okay, let’s disregard that for now.” Alumni waved for both of us to stop. “Either we’re dealing with two murderers here, or someone’s found disguises.” She turned to Anomia. “Did you see their face?”

“Give me a break. I got stabbed.” Anomia pointed to her shoulder as if we hadn’t noticed. “You’d think the killer would be smarter than to show their face. They had a mask.”

“A mask? What did it look like?” Bekia asked. 

“Just a pillowcase with holes in it.” Anomia shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”

“What do you mean what’s the-” Tourri rolled her slightly upturned eyes. “This means that they only have one pillowcase.” She pauses and reconsidered. “Well, one of them.” Not the conclusion I would have made, but a valid conclusion.

“So, what are we gonna do? Search people’s rooms?” Otakairre joked.

“Yes, if we have to.” Alumni deadpanned. 

I curled my hands into fists. “But that’s wrong.” I detested even one person in my room, and I would not tolerate an invasion of privacy like this.

“So is murder.” Alumni stared at me with new suspicion. “Are you saying that we should give serial killers privacy?”

“No, I’m just saying... no one else here is consenting to this.”

“No one consented to getting murdered either.” Alumni raised an eyebrow. 

“Can both of you please shut up?” Alice exclaimed. “We still haven’t found Ceanne and you too are busy squabbling like fifth graders.”

Alumni gave me one final glare before turning back to the rest of the group, who had been watching this all unfold. “What’s Ceanne’s room number?”

“Sixty-four.” Otakairre brushed her dark hair out of her face. 

“Let’s go.” Alumni led the crowd out of the room and into the division between the hallways. “Which one?” She turned to Otakairre.

“Right.” Otakairre pointed to rooms 51-100.

Ceanne’s door was locked, and her lights were off. “Well, this is a problem.” Muyin stared at me, raising an eyebrow. “Can anyone pick locks?”

I fingered my lockpick in my pocket. “I can.” I pulled the tool out of my pocket and knelt to the door. It was easier than I expected. I assumed the doors of a murder facility would be harder to open.

Tourri shoved past me after it became clear that I would not be going in first. Her eyebrows rose. “So that’s why it smelled so bad.”

Alumni stepped up to her side. “I guess we’re down another member.”

“What do you mean we’re down another member?” I pushed through the meager gathering at the entrance. “...Oh.” Ceanne was still on the floor and one look at the gash in her throat told me that she was not sleeping. A knife rested on the floor, its blade splattered with blood.

“The murderer?” Tourri ventured.

I shook my head. “No, they wouldn’t have left the knife here.”

“Suicide, then,” Bekia said.

“Maybe.” Alumni stepped over the corpse and grabbed a chair. She dragged it over to a security camera, tucked away in the corner. I cursed myself for not noticing it.

“ _ Oh, you’re in trouble now, aren’t you? _ ”

Alumni stood up on the chair and reached for a button on the side of the camera. A tape popped out. “Let’s find out,” She clambered down from the seat and looked around the room. “Where’s the nearest tape player?”

The nearest tape player was not very near at all. It was across from the printer room, in a closet. It wasn’t a closet, as it was set up with a projector, but it was small enough to pass for one. Of course, the boxes of knives didn’t help. They had the word ‘extras’ engraved on the blades.

Alumni inserted the tape and skipped forward to 10:30. By this point, I’d gnawed my middle nail down to the skin. The footage showed Ceanne entering the room, her face streaked with tears. She grabbed a knife from the little drawer in the desk. I turned away as she lifted the blade toward her throat.

Bekia slipped her hand into mine, and I prayed it wasn’t shaking too much.

The truth was, I’d been hoping that this had been the murderer. Because once there was one suicide, other people could follow suit. Other people being Elia. She’d said it herself: “I don’t think I can take this.”

I shuddered at the thought of her copying Ceanne.

“ _ But that’ll just make your job easier, why not let her? _ ”

I grit my teeth against the insistent mutterings. They’d been wrong about this, they could be wrong about Elia too.

“So, what does this mean?” Bekia asked.

“It means we can’t blame everything on the murderer.” Alumni ejected the tape. “Come on, we have better work to do. Such as figuring out if we’ve got two psychos in this hellhole.” She led our suitably rattled group out of the room and back into our makeshift headquarters.

When the meeting was over, Bekia pulled me aside. “Can I talk to you?”

I tensed. “About what?” Maybe my hand had been shaking.

“...Things,” Bekia said. “Is there somewhere we can be alone?”

My heart leaped at the chance to be alone with her. Or to be with her at all. I pointed to a random room. “We could go in here.”

“Great.” She pulled me inside. “Ok, now that no one can overhear us, tell me about that voice.”

“What vo- oh.” I sighed. “Why?” 

“Well, I’m not fully convinced that you’re not insane. So, what did it sound like?”

I took a deep breath. If I said the wrong thing she’d think I was a psycho and never talk to me again. No pressure. “First of all, what made you think that?”

“ You cut off circulation in three of my fingers,” Bekia said.

I sighed. “Don’t worry about it, I think I was just sleep-deprived. Still. Now can I please get back to my room?”

“Wait.” Bekia’s hand settled on my arm. “Do you… maybe wanna hang out or something later?”

I froze. “When?” I blurted.

“I dunno. I’d be fine anytime.” Bekia didn’t seem to notice my embarrassing behavior. “There’s not much to do besides look for the killer.”

I inwardly winced at the word killer. “I’m free anytime too.”

“So… any ideas?” Bekia looked at her feet.

“I was about to…” I hesitated, racking my brain for an idea. “I was going to look around and see if there’s any disguises around here. Do you wanna come?”

Bekia smiled and began rooting through the room we’d holed up in. Like most rooms, the floor had been smothered by boxes. This one held speakers and cords and punch mix. “Well, we know how Olive made a party.” Bekia sighed. “No wigs. Let’s try the next one.”

#  | Murderer |

This hadn’t gone as I’d planned. They shouldn’t have known about the first night. My mistake. My problem. All for me to fix. Always for me to fix.

These detectives were getting annoying. But I had to be patient. If I started targeting a certain group, they’d wonder how I knew everyone who was in the detectives. After all, not everyone is as observant as I am, and it won’t take long for her to figure that out.

#  | Avi |

It took five more rooms before we found costumes. An entire row of wig stands, all empty. I groaned. “It could be anyone.”

_ “Good. _ ”

Bekia rifled through a box of clean shirts. “At least there’s free clothes.” She grinned.

“What are you doing?” A voice came from behind us.

I spun around, reaching into my pocket for my knife. A set of dual-colored pigtails greeted me. Muyin. I breathed a sigh of relief but didn’t release my weapon. “What are  **you** doing?” I asked. “Have you been following us this whole time?” 

Muyin shrugged. “Kind of. You looked like you were doing something interesting, and I was bored.” She didn’t look the least bit ashamed to have been stalking us.

“You could’ve just asked.” Surprisingly, Bekia seemed more offended at this privacy breach than me. 

“Well, I see you’ve discovered the wigs,” Muyin said. “Along with half the detectives, probably.” She leaned against the doorway. “Good luck finding anything worthwhile.”

My eyes narrowed. “You already knew about this? Why didn’t you bring it up in the meeting?”

Muyin shrugged. “I don’t know. Why didn’t you tell anyone you saw the murderer the first night?” She glared at me. 

I sighed. “Okay, fair enough. Since you know so much, did you find anything else?” Maybe she had, but I doubted it.

“Actually, I did.” Muyin pushed past me and grabbed a panel in the wall. It ripped free easily, revealing a tunnel, barely big enough for one person to crawl through it. “I figured the murderer had to have a way to travel between rooms without being seen, you know, covered in blood.”

Bekia peered into the tunnel, squatting down. “Are these in every room?” 

Muyin shrugged. “More or less, I think.”

I glanced at the shaft and shivered. “Have you tried climbing through them?” 

“Nah, I thought I’d get lost,” Muyin answered. “Besides, I found these right after the detective meeting. There wasn’t much time to explore them, even if I wanted to.” 

I turned away from the tunnel and looked through the second bin of shirts, cross-legged. My hand brushed something rough, like fabric coated with paint. I grabbed onto it and yanked. My hand came away clutching a long-sleeved shirt, splattered with blood. Especially, on the sleeves. I shrieked, dropping the shirt like it was on fire. 

Muyin gave the shirt a passing glance. “Oh, my god. That’s useless, we don’t have any way to get DNA. Ugh, this place gives us everything except actual detective equipment. Olive can plan an entire party and poison the drinks but we can’t scan for fingerprints. Seriously, this…” She trailed off in her rambling as she noticed, almost for the first time, that Bekia and I were still there.

“What else is in there?” Bekia leaned over my bin. “Also, wait a minute.” She pointed to Muyin. “You think it was Olive.”

“Well, I mean, it was her party. Makes the most sense. It couldn’t be any of us, everyone in the detectives has an alibi for Elvise’s death. Or, at least when her corpse was moved.” She stared pointedly at me. “Right?”

“What? Why are you looking at me?” I asked. “Do you think I lied?”

“I don’t know, did you?” Muyin inched closer to me. “Maybe you did.”

“Hey, hey, break it up.” Bekia pulled Muyin away from me. “Leave her alone, she’s innocent.” Muyin raised an eyebrow. 

“ _ You want to kill her. She suspects you. Get rid of the threat. _ ”

“Let’s just focus on the situation at hand. It could be anyone, we have DNA but no way to identify it, and there’s tunnels in the walls. Great.” Bekia said, vaguely motioning to each item as she spoke. “Maybe we could… oh. How dark is the blood on that shirt?”

“It’s basically brown.” Muyin crossed her arms, looking annoyed at being bossed around. 

“That means that the murderer has known about this place for days. And that the shirt might be from the first night.” I said, nudging the garment away from me with my foot. 

“Come on, let’s tell Alumni, she deserves to know about this place,” Bekia said.

“She’s on patrol right now. Rooms one through fifty.” I stood up, shoving the bins to the side. Bekia led the way to the door, her ponytail swishing behind her.

We found Alumni near the first few rooms. Bekia ran ahead, waving a notepad I didn’t know she had. “We found something.” She called, nearly tripping over an untied shoelace. 

Alumni stopped in her pacing, looking relieved to have a distraction. “What is it?”

“There’s a room near our meeting area. It’s got a bunch of extra shirts and wigs. Also, there’s tunnels in the freaking walls.” Bekia handed Alumni her notepad, which was full of scribbles and a few stick figures.

Alumni searched the notes. “I’ll check this out in…” She glanced at a clock. “...half an hour. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.” She sighed. “You all should explore a little more. I need to start making some groups for individual discovering like you all are.”

I thought about telling her that it had been me and Bekia until Muyin started following us, but decided she had enough to think about besides that her detectives were stalking each other.

Before we could do as Alumni suggested, someone screamed from across the complex.


	7. Chapter 7

_ Do not sleep, my child _

_ She waits for the fever _

_ Do not sleep, my child _

_ She doesn't either _

I jumped. “What was that?” 

“What do you think?” Muyin said, looking for the direction of the sound.

“Alright, let’s split u-” Alumni cut off as someone sprinted past, round eyes wide with terror. She skidded to a stop in front of us. Runi, with wavy red hair and smudged mascara. 

“You, you guys are the detective people, right?“ She stuttered. “My friend, she just…” Runi blinked rapidly, pointing toward where she’d come from with a pale, freckled finger. “Her door, and... follow me.”

Alumni glanced at each of us before running after her. I shrugged and followed, with Muyin and Bekia close behind. This couldn’t be good.

Runi stopped at room seven, which belonged to Avine. Or, used to. Her door was held open by her corpse, with a blade sticking out of her chest. Someone had probably rigged a trap above her door, set up to kill whoever walked in.

“She slept over in my room last, last night, and.. she wanted to go get some of her stuff after breakfast, but now…” Runi choked back a sob and looked away. Muyin stood on her tiptoes and jumped, trying to see the top of the doorway. 

“I think they just placed a knife on the top of the door so it’d fall on the first person to walk through.” Alumni concluded, scribbling something down in her notebook. “Whichever one of them is responsible.”

“There might not be two,” Bekia remarked. “All of this could easily be one person if they’re fast enough.” Muyin glanced at me as if expecting me to counter the theory. I didn’t, because this really could be one person. I didn’t know which idea frightened me more.

“Hey, there you are. Why aren’t you on patrol? We found some wigs.” Tourri jogged up to us. “Oh, wait, that’s why you’re not on patrol. Oh, that makes sense. Dead body.” She put a hand over the eyes of her companion. Novia, her bouncy black curls held back by multitudes of hair clips. 

Novia slapped Tourri’s hand away before seeing Avine. “Okay, never mind, never mind. Gimme the hand back.” She yanked on Tourri’s fingers. “Hand, now.” 

Tourri sighed. “I think you have this under control, right? We’re gonna.. okay, we’ll talk about this at the meeting, anyway, bye.” She nudged Novia with her elbow, urging her forward.

I ignored her and reached for the knife in Avine’s chest. I grimaced as I wrenched it out, inspecting the blade. ‘Extras,’ I read through the blood. “This came from the projector room,” I said.

“How do you know that?” Alumni asked, crouching down to where I was. 

“All the knives from there say extras on the blade.” I pointed to the engraving. “Whoever this was, they knew about that room before we did.”

“We don’t need to know where they were, we need to know where they’re going to be next. That tour conveniently missed every room that had anything useful.” Alumni sighed. “I think we need to start having meetings later, so everyone has time to find things in the morning.” She stood up, brushing off her pants. “Also, Avi.” She pointed to me. “I forgot to ask at the meeting, but you talked about the murderer seeing you?”

I shuddered, remembering my terror at the first kill “Yeah, I- I swear they looked me right in the eyes, but they didn’t do anything.”

“Why didn’t you try to stop them?” Muyin asked, crossing her arms.

“If I’d done that, I’m pretty sure I’d be dead by now.” I snapped. “I’m going back to my room.” I paused midstep. “Bekia, you wanna come?” Considering she was my only friend, I wanted to keep her.

Bekia’s face lit up. She glanced at Alumni, who nodded in confirmation. Bekia grinned and followed me back to room 100.

#  | Alumni |

I sighed as I watched the two of them leave. I hadn’t even been able to ask Avi any questions. She and Bekia would make a cute couple, giving they survived long enough to start dating. I swore this place was just another high school if a bit more gruesome. 

Honestly, one of them should have been leading this mess. Or Muyin, or someone who knew how to investigate. Anyone but me.

#  | Avi |

I opened the door to my room for Bekia, performing a mock curtsey. “Why thank you,” she said. She hadn’t stopped smiling for the entire walk. She’d be dead in a month, I shouldn’t get attached. Oh, who was I kidding? She was gorgeous, smart, and kind. In other words, the perfect friend. I needed to stop overthinking this.

“You gonna sit down?” Bekia asked, and I realized I’d been staring off into space for who knows how long.

I nodded and plopped onto the bed. “What do you wanna do?”

Bekia shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I bit my lip, looking at my sheets. “I don’t know either.” 

“Hey, don’t you have a computer?” Bekia asked. “Why don’t we do something on there?”

“Yeah, I’m sure I can manage to pirate some old movies.” I grabbed the computer from under the bed. 

“Wait.” Bekia held up a hand. “What’s that?” She pointed to a wisp of lilac smoke flowing out from my air vent. 

My breath caught in my throat. “I think we need to get out of here.” I went to my drawer and slipped the smaller knife into my pocket. “Like, now.” I shoved my computer into Bekia’s arms, breathing quickly and shallowly. I grabbed her, tugging Bekia out into the empty hallway. The door slammed behind me. 

“What was that?” Bekia cried. 

“I don’t know.” I collapsed onto the floor, fingering my knife. “Knowing this place, some kind of chemical warfare.” I sighed, leaning my head against the wall. “I think we’re safe.”

“No, no, we’re not.” Bekia pointed to more gas, coming out of the vents in the hallway. Other girls had started to appear from their rooms, looking equally frightened. 

I gasped, standing back up. “It’s everywhere.” I looked around frantically. “There.” I pointed to a closet and, without waiting for a response, dragged Bekia into it. Already, I felt my head getting lighter. Sleeping gas.

  
  


#  | Murderer |

Gas masks. Not the most comfortable, but at least they worked. The hallway was clogged with purple smog, obscuring my vision. I picked out a dark shape in the smog and drew my knife. A small one. With light steps, I hovered over them. 

And stabbed them in the chest. 

I couldn’t kill too many, they’d start to recognize a pattern in who survived. Five more, not counting the one at the beginning. I tried to spread them out through the complex, as targeting a certain area would be suicide. I avoided looking at the faces. I avoided looking at anything. If I looked at every single dying face in this hell hole, I might as well be one of them.

Satisfied, I went back to my hiding place, slipped my mask into its nook, and gave in to the blackness of sleep.

#  | Avi |

I woke up feeling woozy, confused, and far from refreshed. Bekia’s head was slumped on my shoulder, her breathing calm and steady. I smiled, running my fingers through her hair. After a few more minutes, she opened her eyes, gazing into mine. Hers were deep brown, like two endless pools of chocolate. 

“I think we got knocked out.” She stretched lazily, taking her head off my shoulder. “Let’s go see who died this time.” She grinned and stood up, yanking me with her. 

“Is it safe?” I cracked the door open. The lilac mist had dissipated, and others were waking up too. “I think we’re good.” I glanced at a clock. Half an hour had passed.

Bekia shoved past me, scanning the area, “Dead or sleeping?” She pointed to Maline, who wasn’t moving. I crept over to her. 

“Definitely dead.” Maline’s chest had a slit stabbed through it. 

“Yeah, I think that corpse isn’t alive anymore.” Bekia peered over my shoulder. “We should hear about the rest of them soon enough.”

“Rest of them?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Well, they wouldn’t knock out the entire complex just to stab Maline, would they?” Bekia said. She looked across the hallway, where there was another cluster, similar to the one that had formed around Maline. “I’m guessing that’s dead body number two.”

I shook off my suspicion. It couldn’t be her, I’d know. “Perhaps.” I smiled and followed the small stream of people toward it. Shoulders knocked against mine as I got closer. 

“Aha.” Bekia jumped, looking over the top of people’s heads. “I called it, another one.” She sighed. “Oh, great. I’m getting excited about more people dying.”

“Who is it? What does she look like?” I asked. Bekia was taller than me, so I couldn’t see anything. 

“Uh, brown skin, dreadlocks, it looks like she dyed her hair blonde. Any of this ringing a bell?” Bekia shrugged. 

I racked my memory. “Shilia.” I snapped my fingers. “I think it’s her.”

“Okay, that’s a little scary.” Bekia joked, pulling me away from the crowd. “What’d you do, memorize everyone here?”

“Something like that.” I jogged over to rooms 1-50, beckoning for Bekia to follow me. Tourri noticed us, calling us over. 

“Who’d you find?” She yelled. 

“Maline and Shilia.” I hollered.

“What?” Tourri screamed back.

I sighed and ran closer. “Maline and Shilia.” 

Tourri nodded. “We got Elize, Monise, Ayona, and… “ She bit her lip, tears welling in her brown eyes. “... Novia.”

I blinked. She’d been with Novia earlier, and the two were obviously close. Now she was dead.

“I’m so sorry.” Bekia enveloped Tourri in a hug. I hung back, unsure of what to do. My eyes darted to Elize’s corpse. I walked over, inspecting the wound. It looked the same as the other two: a clean gash in the chest. Efficient, because even if the murderer had missed the vital areas, the victim would’ve bled out by the time the sleeping gas wore off.

I moved over to Novia. She had the same kind of wound. I went to Monise, whose long brown hair hung over her face. My eyes widened, and I felt a wave of nausea. This was different, way different. 

It was messy for starters. There were stab wounds on her throat, head, chest, even one in her leg. They weren’t clean either. Blood spread all over her shirt. I counted thirty-seven separate injuries, spread out over the vital areas. I shivered. Whoever had done this didn’t seem sane. “Hey, Bekia,” I called to her. “Come, look at this.”

Bekia bid Tourri a reluctant farewell and joined me at the corpse. Her face went pale. “Oh…. that’s a lot of blood.” 

I nodded. “It’s different from the others. Maybe the theory about the two killers was correct.” I glanced around. “Where are you going?”

I ran to catch up with her. She was staring at Ayona’s corpse, along with a gathering of other detectives, who were in various stages of investigating. “I think we found the second killer.” Ayona was wearing a gas mask, and a knife in her throat.

I gasped, an idea coming to mind. “Excuse me, can I do something?” I nudged some of the other detectives’ hands away. Before waiting for a response, I turned the corpse over, grimacing. I lifted her cropped black hair off of her neck, revealing a device attached to it. The same as Ciarre’s, from back at the beginning. It wasn’t flashing as hers had been. Solid red.

“What is that?” Grasia asked, a strand of her dyed emerald bob falling in her face.

“I don’t know,” I said, turning Ayona back over. 

“Hey, I’ve seen that before,” Maya said. She had short, dirty blonde hair and a round face, with downturned eyes.

“On Ciarre, right?” I said, looking up at her.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “No, on Carmen.” She said. “There was one on Ciarre, too?”

I nodded. “Yeah, and the murderer said that she was the ‘real murderer.’” I made quotes in the air as I spoke. “Maybe it’s some kind of warning for us?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Maya said. “Don’t they want us to die quickly?”

I shrugged. “Maybe they needed some entertainment.” I glanced up at a security camera on the wall.

I stood up, brushing off my knees. “There might be more in the main hallway,” I said to Bekia. As we walked, I noticed Maya and Pranshi following us, keeping their distance. 

“Hey, you can join the detectives, it’s an open club,” Bekia called back to them. They startled, realizing they’d been discovered.

“Come on.” I motioned for them to walk with us. Pranshi’s head was shaved completely, revealing many lighter patches on her brown skin.

We arrived at the main hall to find a now-familiar scene: clumps of girls crowded around limp figures. “We’re gonna check out this one, you two can get the other.” Maya pointed to the closest cluster. I glanced at Bekia and jogged off to the other body. Maya didn’t have any authority to order us around, but neither did Alumni, and plenty of people listened to her.

Whimsi’s corpse looked the same as the other ones, so we concluded that Ayona had only taken out one person. Or the murderer had only gotten one person. Or Ayona had been the real murderer. No one knew.

I absently scratched the back of my neck, moving to get up. My hand froze. I felt something metallic, resting on the base of my neck, I gasped, tugging my hair around the spot. 

“What’s wrong?” Bekia asked, standing over me.

“Um, nothing.” I gave a weak smile. “We should go check on Maya and Pranshi, see who they found.” I clambered to my feet and walked over to the two, dragging Bekia with me. 

Maya and Pranshi met us halfway. “Well, Ura’s dead.” 

“I think that’s all of them,” Bekia said. “We’ll find out at the meeting after dinner. At least, assuming Alumni is serious about moving the meetings.” 

“Maybe we’ll have multiple each day or something, judging by how busy the murderer is.” Maya jumped as a bell rang. “Yay, lunch.”

“You coming?” Bekia gestured for me to come with her, following Pranshi toward the cafeteria.

I nodded. “Just a minute, I gotta get something from my room.” I calmly walked away, ignoring the racing of my heart. I had something on me. Something that, if my suspicions were correct, could control me.

_ “You don’t need to be controlled. You’re doing this on your own.” _

I cursed under my breath. I thought the voice would be gone by now.

I ducked into the safety of my room, locking the door. There was a mirror in the bathroom, but the bathroom had tile floors. If this device was connected to my central nervous system, taking it off might knock me out, and the impact on the tile floor could kill me. Maybe.

_ “You want to test that, don’t you? See if the deaths could be made to look accidental.” _

I sat on my bed and opened my computer’s camera, positioning it so I could see a little. With a deep breath, I grasped the metal and pulled. It didn’t budge. I cursed and tried again, scraping my fingernail under it. 

“ _ Oh, I wouldn’t try that if I w- _ ”

After a final heave, it gave. I screamed as searing pain blazed through every nerve in my body. I was dimly aware of tears streaming down my face.

The sheets rushed up to meet me.


	8. Chapter 8

_She walks around a circle of stones_

_Scattering strife and shattering bones_

I woke up to hair in my mouth. I must’ve fallen on the floor. I groaned and sat up, rubbing my hand, which had fallen asleep. My stomach growled, reminding me that lunch should still be going on. I glanced at the clock. Only a few minutes had passed, luckily. I crawled to my feet, using my bedpost to hoist myself up. My hand shook.

I scanned the carpet and my sheets, picking up the little monitor. It was round and flat, like a button-cell battery. I turned it over. Bright red. I slipped it into my pocket, cleaned up my hair, and walked to lunch. Tell no one. Well, maybe tell someone.

I spotted Bekia sitting at a table with three girls I don’t know. One was Asian, with shiny, light blue hair and angular cheekbones. I recognized her as Chailia. Rueba lounged there as well, her thick blonde hair hanging down in two braids over her shoulders. The last girl I hadn’t seen before, even in the IDs. Her hair was straight and chestnut brown, falling over her delicate features. She perched on the edge of her seat, perfectly still.

I noticed an empty seat on the table next to theirs and slid into it. Bekia waved hello, but turned back to the conversation at hand. My food arrived. I ate slowly, eavesdropping all the while.

“Is your friend, um… Avi, back yet?” The new girl asked.

“Yeah, she’s literally right there.” Bekia indicated to me with a perfectly manicured hand. “Avi, this is Kortana and Chailia. You two, this is Avi.”

I smiled at them. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

Kortana’s lips lifted too, but something about it seemed off to me. “Bekia was just telling me about the whole sleeping gas catastrophe. It is crazy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I can’t believe someone would do that, it’s horrible,” Chailia said in a high, airy voice. She had deep red lipstick over her lips, overdrawn slightly. “I’m Chailia, by the way.”

“Oh, hi.” I waved.

“I could use some of that sleeping gas. Just let some into my little brother’s room while I’m babysitting or…” Rueba’s face fell as she appeared to remember she’d never see him again. 

“What were you getting?” Bekia asked, taking a bite of pizza. 

“Oh, um… “ I glanced at Chailia and Kortana. “Can I talk to you in private?” I motioned to the edge of the cafeteria.

“Uh, sure.” Bekia stood up and followed me into the bathroom, sending a confused look to her companions.

I reached into my pocket and grasped the monitor. “So, I found this.” I opened my palm. Bekia audibly gasped, her eyes growing wide. 

“Where? Who was it on?” She asked.

“Shh, we’re not the only people in here,” I muttered, pointing to feet under a stall. “And it was on me. It kinda knocked me out, sorry I was late.”

“What color is it?” Bekia turned it over. She sighed. “Do you think you’ve done anything?”

“I don’t know. That, uh…” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “...that voice kind of cut off when I took it off, but it might be a coincidence.”

“Aren’t these just warnings? How could they alter your brain or something?” Bekia asked.

“Do you remember the Telsin Experiments?” I said. They’d happened a few years ago, but had been shut down. There had been rumors that the government had confiscated prototypes and continued the experiments in secret.

“Those old things? But… “ Bekia facepalmed. “Oh my god, it’s mind control, isn’t it? They’re using us as guinea pigs.”

I sighed. “I don’t know, but we should look out for more of them.”

“And do what? How would we stop them?”

“Take them off?” I suggested.

“Uh, I don’t know much about how these work, but they’re probably not meant to be removable.”

“It didn’t do anything permanent to me,” I reasoned. 

“But…they want to kill us. Obviously,” Bekia said.

“We don’t even know if they do anything besides warn,” I said, slipping it back in my pocket. “We should probably get back to lunch.”

“You should bring this up in the detective meeting,” Bekia said as we walked back. “It’s important information.” She waved to Chailia and Kortana.

I sighed. “Yeah, and immediately become our top suspect? Sure, I’ll do that.” I winced. “I mean, uh, maybe someone else will bring it up.”

“What’s this about suspects?” Chailia asked, twirling hair around her finger.

“... detective stuff.” I fumbled, looking to Bekia for help. She gave me a similar panicked look.

“It’s uh, confidential.” Bekia shrugged. 

“She means you gotta join to know about it. They’re recruiting.” Rueba joked. “Also, I ate some of your pizza. Did you know this place has really good food?”

“Like witches.” Chailia murmured, her eyes growing unfocused. A shiver crept up my spine. 

“Yes, like Hansel and Gretel,” Kortana said. “That is what you meant, right?”

“Ding-dong, the witch is dead.” Chailia’s head jerked toward me, her eyes stretching wide. “Are you a witch?” She stumbled closer. “Do you know what we do to witches?”

“Is something wrong?” I took a step backward, grappling for my knife in my pocket. 

“She’s been acting weird on and off since this morning,” Rueba said, guiding Chailia back to her seat. “Although, everyone’s kind of acting weird so…” She offered me an apologetic smile, showing off the gap between her teeth. 

“Can I check something?” Bekia reached forward as Chailia’s head drooped.

“Depends what you’re checking.” Rueba put a protective arm around Chailia’s narrow shoulders. “Is this more detective stuff? I will join if I have to.”

“Well, it is detective stuff and yes, please join, we’ve had like three members die already,” Bekia said.

“Alright, I’m a detective. Now tell me what’s going on. Or I’ll… stab you.” Rueba made jazz hands by her face, smiling. “Seriously, though, what’s happening?”

“These.” Bekia held out a hand, and it took me a moment to remember the monitor. I dropped it into her hand, noticing a small birthmark on her index finger. “We’ve seen like three so far, and two of those people are dead. We think they’re warnings.”

Rueba fingered the device. “What is this thing?” She looked at me. “Where’d you get it?”

I shrugged. “Ayona’s corpse.” Bekia sent me a withering look.

“Oh, she’s dead? What a surprise,” Chailia mumbled.

“Another one bites the dust,” Rueba sang, before becoming serious again. “You think she’s got one?” She pointed to Chailia.

“Can you check?” I requested. 

Rueba peeled back Chailia’s hair and cursed. Loudly. In multiple languages. “Yep, she’s got one. What do you want me to do?”

“Try to take it off,” Bekia suggested, shooting a nervous glance at me. I nodded my approval. The worst thing that could happen, we eliminated a suspect. 

Rueba reached for the monitor, but a hand snapped around her wrist. Chailia’s hand, nails digging into her skin. Rueba yelped. She pulled her hand away, stumbling backward. Chailia stood, lifting her head to meet my eyes. She lunged.

I shrieked as her thin form rammed Rueba to the ground, her fingers groping for her throat. Rueba yelped, arms flailing on the floor. I grabbed my knife, hand shaking. No, I was not about to do this. It wasn’t happening. Not in front of everyone.

I knelt on the floor and stabbed Chailia in the head.

She collapsed, flopping on top of Rueba. Bekia yanked her off, giving Rueba the chance to breathe. My breaths rattled in my throat. “Are you okay?” Bekia asked Rueba.

“I, I think so.” Rueba croaked, staring at me with wonder. “Did you just save my life?”

“Maybe,” I said, painfully aware of the entire cafeteria’s eyes. I reached down and gingerly pulled the knife out of Chailia, biting my lip. “I’m gonna go wash this off.” My voice echoed in the silent cafeteria. 

“Alright, show’s over, people. Just your regularly scheduled self-defense.” Rueba said, a little stronger this time. A few conversations started up again, but I could feel eyes tracking me as I snuck into the bathroom, knife dripping blood. 

I rolled up my sleeves and rinsed off the blade, staining the water pink with gore. The mirror was still broken. Fragments clung to the frame, remnants of the horrors of the first night.

# | Murderer |

I shouldn’t have broken the mirror. Now there are a million narrow cuts on my wrists, and I have to wear long sleeves. I’m running out of shirts, and the fabric here is itchy. The blood doesn’t help.

#  | Avi |

I dried off the weapon with a paper towel and slipped it back into my pocket. Lunch hadn’t ended yet.

Bekia and Rueba were waiting for me when I returned. They beckoned for me to sit in what used to be Chailia’s seat. “Well, that was great,” Rueba said as I slipped into the chair. “My friend stabbed my other friend. Does anyone know what that’s called?”

“Murder?” Bekia suggested. 

“Wednesday,” Rueba said, chucking. “Oh, hi Avi. I was talking about the time someone almost killed me. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Yeah, anytime,” I said.

“Oh, you’ll stab my friends 24/7? Excellent, because Bekia’s getting annoying.” Rueba grinned, though her voice still sounded hoarse. 

“Hey.” Bekia slapped her on the arm. “I will stab myself, thank you very much.” She glanced at me. “For legal reasons, that’s a joke.”

“Eh, less work for me.” I took a bite of cold pizza that Rueba, thankfully, hadn’t devoured. “I’m so sorry about her, by the way.” Not really.

“It’s cool. I’m still alive, so I can’t blame you,” Rueba said.

“In other words, she got all the sobbing over with before you arrived,” Bekia said through a mouthful of cheese.

“Hey, ” Rueba snapped. “I thought we agreed on not telling her that.” 

I grinned, and for a moment, I forgot about how awful today had been, how many people had died, and how it was all my fault. I forgot about it. 

It didn’t last.

After lunch, Elia ran up to the three of us. “Hey, I heard something happened while I was in the bathroom. Did you guys figure out anything?” 

“Well, she’s really good at stabbing people,” Rueba said, jerking a thumb at me.

Elia blinked. “Huh?”

“Someone tried to kill Rueba and she prevented it.” Bekia jumped in.

“Oh, that’s scary.” Elia glanced to the side as if expecting someone to attack her at any second. She looked at my face, studying me. “Your mascara’s messed up.” Elia whipped a bottle out of her pocket and, before I could react, brushed some on my lashes. 

“Hey,” Bekia cried, belatedly. “Hey, leave her alone.”

“It’s fine.” I smiled and veered off toward my room. “Anyway, I’m gonna go change my shirt.” I pointed to a spot of blood on one of the sleeves. “I’ll see you later, I guess.” I waved, looking behind me. 

I slammed straight into someone else, knocking our heads together. My knife fell out of my pocket, still sheathed. A notebook fell onto my head. I yelped and grappled for the blade, slipping it back into my pocket. “Ow,” Someone cried, rubbing their head and making a mess of their wavy, dark brown hair. 

She looked up, wincing. “Sorry,” Karnae said. “I was, uh… hi. Can I help you with anything?” She reached for her notebook with a brown hand, closing it before I could get a glimpse of its contents. “I’m Karnae, by the way. Resident klutz.” She smiled.

“Avi.” I pointed to myself. “Where do people keep getting those notebooks?” I already knew where they were, but it’d make an acceptable conversation topic. I needed friends. Well, I had Bekia and Elia, but, knowing this place, they’d be dead within twenty-four hours.

“Oh, um, it’s next to the… Okay, I’ll show you.” Karnae stood up, tucking the notebook under her arm. She wore a pair of gray leggings and an oversized t-shirt. They’d decided to give us a variety of clothes in the same palette as the original outfit we’d woken up in. I clambered to my feet, brushing off my sweatpants. 

“Alright, so… what did you want to be that the AI thought was wrong?” Karnae’s voice held a touch of bitterness, but she didn’t show it on her face. 

“An investigative journalist.” I shrugged. “I could still do that in here.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” Karnae nodded. “I, uh, wanted to be an artist. That’s what this notebook is for.” She lifted the book, with its purple cover. “I guess it didn’t think I was good enough.”

“I don’t understand how we’re supposed to predict what career we’re best suited to if the AI already knows it.” I sped up to keep up with her long strides.

“Because girls are superior and our brains are more complex.” Karnae made air quotes as she said ‘superior,’ “Boys are lucky, it chooses for them and they don’t get death penalty for being wrong.”

I sighed. “The whole system is messed up.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe I actually, uh, bought into that stuff about correctment facilities.” Karnae chuckled. “What a bunch of bullshit.”

I nodded. “Is this it?” I pointed to a door next to us.

“Um… no, next one over.” Karnae paused, holding up a finger. “Wait. Something smells weird.”

I sniffed. “Blood.” I shuddered and glanced around, but the only blood was dried on my sleeve. 

Karnae cracked open the nearest door, looking from side to side. “This room is clear, I think. Maybe it’s coming from the notebook room?”

“I hope not.” As I neared the room, I could pick up soft sobs coming from inside. I cracked open the door, hand shaking. “Hello? Who’s there?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Someone whispered. 

I peered into the room. “Aspen?” I asked. “What’s wrong?” I took a cautious step inside and gasped. Gabrise lay immobile in front of Aspen, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

Aspen held something curled in her hand. “I didn’t wanna do it,” She screamed. “I didn’t do anything, I promise.”

Karnae glanced over my shoulder and sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy fucking shit, that is a murder scene.”

“It’s not murder,” Aspen cried. “I didn’t murder anybody.” 

“What happened to her?” I asked, indicating to Gabrise.

“I didn’t mean to,” Aspen said. “They made me do it.” Her voice in pitch. Something fell out of her hand. A miniature device, the same size as a button-cell battery. 

I picked it up while Karnae moved to comfort Aspen. It hummed in my hand, still warm. I turned it over, holding my breath.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me."


	9. Chapter 9

_ Smile at me, please _

_ Tell me it’s okay _

_ Smile at me, please _

_ Before all fades to gray _

Bright red flashed in my face. I glanced at Aspen, squatting down to her level. “Was this on your neck?” I asked.

She nodded, trembling. “It burned me.” Karnae moved to lift her hair but gave up when Aspen flinched and scooted away. 

“Was it controlling you?” I asked, holding up the monitor. 

“I didn’t wanna do it,” Aspen cried, tangling her hands into her hair. She’d pulled her gloves over her fingers.

“Um, what’s this about mind control?” Karnae asked, brow knitted in confusion.

“Telsin experiments,” I said.

“Telsin what's?” Karnae put an arm around Aspen’s shaking shoulder.

“Mind control experiments. The government confiscated the prototypes.” I held up the monitor. “I assume this is a later model.”

“Oh, great. Mind control. Just what we needed in here.” Karnae said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “How do you, uh, know this, anyway?”

“There’s been a few incidents.” I slipped the monitor in my pocket, next to mine. “They’re removable, but they give a little shock, as you’ve probably discovered.” I indicated to Aspen, who didn’t even react to the statement. 

“And how do you know that?” Karnae asked again.

“Witness accounts,” I lied. “Anyway, that’s not important. Aspen, did you see these on anyone else?” I held up the gadget. 

Aspen shook her head, tears running down her face. “Is she dead? Did they make me kill her?”

I exchanged a look with Karnae, who shook her head. “Don’t tell her,” She mouthed.

“Oh, I killed her, didn’t I?” Aspen shrieked, burying her head in her knees.

“No, whoever was, um, controlling you did. It’s not your fault.” Karnae comforted her, her eyebrows lifted in concern. 

“Hey, would you be okay coming into the detective meeting to explain what happened?” I asked Aspen.

She shook her head. “Please, don’t tell them it was me.” Aspen’s voice quivered as she struggled not to cry.

“Um… okay.” I moved to Gabrise’s body, searching for any less obvious clues. “Well, whoever’s running this mind control knows how to efficiently kill someone.” 

“What do you mean?” Karnae asked.

“Some of the assumed mind control kills were a little messy, but this one’s pretty clean. Just a broken neck,” I said.

“Just a broken neck? That’s, uh, a little concerning,” Karnae said. 

“Better than thirty-seven stab wounds.” I gave a halfhearted shrug, but Karnae has already turned back to Aspen.

“Are you okay? Do you need me to walk you back to your room?” She asked. Aspen nodded rapidly, almost slipping into tears again, “I guess I’ll see you at dinner, maybe?” Karnae said to me, pulling Aspen to her feet.

“There’s a detective meeting after if you wanna join.”

“No, thanks. I don’t need a target on my back.” Karnae led Aspen out of the room, keeping her head facing forward.

I knelt back down, turned Gabrise’s body over, and blinked in surprise. A small mark was on her neck, raised and red. A burn, I realized. Gabrise’s hair was curled, so it’d probably come from a curling iron.

I took out a monitor from my pocket and held it up to the mark. It lined up perfectly, the wound disappearing behind it. I cursed. Either they both had the devices, or Aspen was stronger than she looked. Hopefully not both.

They were worried. Worried they weren’t the only ones who could do this.

I stood up, taking a deep breath and slipping the monitor back in my pocket. The world spun a little, and I shoved a hand against a box of notebooks to support myself. 

Recalling my original purpose for coming here, I opened the box and rummaged through, scanning for a blue cover. My fingers flipped one of the books open and paused. There was writing, scrawled in a hurried script with letters overlapping each other. I took the notebook out and scanned the pages, detecting words in the nonsense.

_ sheknowssheknowsanditsgettingwarmergettinghottergettingclosersheknows. _

I sighed. I’d have to ask Aspen about this later, figure out who wrote it. I tucked the notebook under my arm, along with a sapphire one I’d picked out. We had dinner in a few hours, and then I had to patrol, after Bekia. 

I sat with Karnae during dinner. I couldn’t talk about Gabrise because Aspen resided on Karnae’s right. I didn’t want to broach the subject for fear that Aspen would start sobbing again. Elia had disappeared in another table, so she’d found friends who were more like her.

Karnae spent most of the lunch sketching, which I didn’t mind. I scrawled a list of all of the Game participants, scratching off those who had already died. Twenty-five, with two suicides and one mind slave kill. At this rate, we’d be dead within two weeks.

“Hey, you good?” Karnae asked me. 

“Well, according to my calculations, we’re all gonna be dead in twelve days.” I pointed to my list.

“Oh, fun. Great, that’s just fcking perfect.” Karnae said, shrugging. “Not much I can do about it, anyway.”

“You uh, could do something but okay.” I turned to a new page, titling it ‘Suspects.’ I paused. We didn’t have any prime suspects. I cursed under my breath.

“Oh, what else is going wrong?” Karnae leaned over my shoulder.

“We don’t have any suspects that everyone agrees on,” I said, taking a bite of my sandwich. “The detectives, I mean.” 

“So what? Who do you think it is?”

“Not anyone with a monitor, that’s for certain. And not any of the detectives, besides Muyin, Otakairre, and Bayli.” I shrugged. “I saw Shaybelle left early this morning before Anomia got stabbed. Muyin’s also been acting a little suspicious, or at least paranoid. And Olive, obviously.”

“Uh, what do you mean, ‘obviously?’” Karnae stopped drawing.

“The punch at her party was poisoned,” I said. “So, Shaybelle… her room is number seventy-three, right?’

“Wait, stop. You can’t just say shit like that and continue without explaining.” Karnae snapped her notebook closed. “The punch was what?”

“Poisoned. Someone put Kloryn in it, and we suspect it was Olive.” I continued.

“Isn’t that too obvious?”

“Maybe, but it makes the most sense,” I said. “They’d have to be one of the people setting up to get an opportunity. Olive could've easily snuck it in before anyone arrived. I need to find out who was helping.”

“Um, probably. Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Karnae asked.

“I don’t know. We’re all still reeling because of… well, this entire place.” I indicated to the cafeteria with a swirling gesture. “We need to get alibis.”

“Dude. Sorry to break it to you, but y’all have zero fucking authority. I wouldn’t even listen to you.”

“Good to know you’ll have my back.” 

“You don’t need alibis, you know where everyone was, right?” Aspen asked, pointing to me.

“Um, no, I don’t.” My brow furrowed in confusion. 

“Let’s test.” Aspen’s turquoise eyes bored holes in my skull.

“Let’s not,” I said, unnerved. “Are you sure she’s good? I mean, she did…” I trailed off at the end, unwilling to say it.

“I mean, she most definitely is not, but she’s not dangerous,” Karane said.

I wasn’t convinced, but I let the topic drop. I didn’t feel like arguing with her.

“First order of business, any new deaths?” Alumni asked, sitting near the front of the room. There was a panel near her, no doubt an entrance to the tunnels. “Besides the nine during sleeping gas.” She continued.

“Gabrise,” I called out. “Mindslave, broken neck.”

“Who? Who killed her?” Tourri asked. “Also, what’s a mindslave?”

“That’s what I’m calling people with those weird devices,” I said.

“Like Ayona,” Maya said, earning a few understanding nods. 

“Yep. Gabrise’s killer has neutralized themself and wishes to remain anonymous,” I said, shifting in my seat.

“How do they neutralize themself?”

“What devices?”

“What the fuck is going on?”

I reached into my pocket, holding up one of the monitors. “These. I don’t know what they do. I think it’s mind control.”

“What?” Otakairre cried. “They do what?”

“Do we have them?” Tourri asked.

“They’re on your neck,” Alumni answered for me. “They should be removable.” In a synchronized movement, everyone reached their hands to their necks, grappling with shaking fingers.

Alice sighed. “I’ve got one.” Her voice trembled. 

“Take it off,” Alumni ordered.

“But- it could…” Alice said.

“Oh, for the love of…” Alumni crossed the room and hauled her out of her seat. She whirled her around, lifted her hair, and yanked.

“No, I wouldn’t-“ My words were cut off as Alice screamed. She flopped forward, the long side of her hair falling over her face. Alumni leaned to catch her, shooting me a panicked look. “... do that.” I finished. 

“Is she okay?” Tourri asked, standing up with a wave of others. She looked at me. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s just knocked out for a little bit.” I turned to Alumni. “What color is that?” I pointed to the device. 

“It’s green… wait, now it’s red. It’s still red. Ow!” Alumni yelped, dropping the device like it was on fire. She rubbed her hand ruefully. “It shocked me.”

“I’m guessing it was supposed to start doing the mind control thingy in here. That would’ve been brutal,” Clairisse said, shuddering.

“Oh, that’s smart,” Muyin said, looking at me. I glared at her.

“Well, crisis averted.” Alumni glanced at Alice. “I mean, besides… let’s just set her back in her seat until she wakes up. Does anyone else have a death to report?”

“Claira and Vigria,” Otakairre said, scratching her neck. “Murder-suicide, also a … mindslave? Is that what we’re calling them?”

Alumni shrugged. “I guess. Now, we know that the murderer most likely has dark hair, because Avi saw them the first night.” She indicated to me as she talked. I bit my lip. My fault, my fault. 

No, their fault.

“We also know they’re using these air ducts for transportation.” Alumni walked over to the vent, tugging it open with a grunt. A chorus of gasps and a few joking oohs and ahs erupted from our circle, myself included. Couldn’t look too smart.

“There’s one of those in my room, too,” Tourri said. She paused. “Oh my god, they could get into my room and stab me.” 

“Not if we stop them. Does anyone know of materials hard enough to stop them from opening the vents?” Alumni said.

“Maybe we could tape them shut?” Clairisse suggested, moving her hands frantically as she spoke.

“Do they even have tape in here?” Otakairre asked.

“They’d better,” Anomia said. “I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not up for getting stabbed. Again.” She held up her arm, the stitches covered by a long sleeve.

“Tape might not be strong enough if we can find any,” Alumni said.

“There’s some in the medical closet,” I said.

“I’ll go get some.” Pranshi offered, slipping out before anyone could stop her.

“Okay, I guess that takes care of that.” Alumni shrugged. “Any other ideas?” 

“We could tape dumbbells on them,” I said, glancing at the clock. Bekia, Carmen, and Bayli should be back any minute. I patrolled after them. Bekia and I could meet up to discuss what we both missed.

Turns out, nothing especially interesting had happened at the end of the meeting after I collected my ration of tape. Carmen had to remove her monitor and Alice woke up. About what I’d expected. 

I swiveled around at the cafeteria, walking back toward the rooms. Suddenly, an object careened into me at terminal velocity. I yelped, my body striking the hard floor. 

“Avi, they’re making us do things,” Elia cried, climbing off me.

I winced, stretching my back. I’d have bruises from that impact. “Well, duh.”

“No, I mean… videos.” She paused. “What do you mean?”

“Irrelevant. Where’ve you been?” I stood up, shaking out my arms. 

“Making a video. To send to my dad. To prove I’m alright.” She shivered. 

“Does everyone have to do this?” I asked, biting my nail.

“I-I think so.” Elia nodded rapidly.

“What’s your last name start with?”

“A,” Elia said.

“They must be going in alphabetical order.” I facepalmed. ”How did I not notice this?”

“Hey, there’s a lot of people here,” Elia said.”What are you doing in this hallway, anyway?” She looked around for an unseen threat.

“Patrolling,” I said, walking again. “What all did they make you do?”

“Just made me say that I was fine, they were helping us out. It was so scary,” Elia said, strolling beside me. “But I think I did, did something bad.” She twirled a lock of hair that had slipped out of her buns.

“What’d you do?” I scanned the halls.

“My dad and I, we… We have a safe word. ‘Bubblegum.’” Elia said. “They, uh, let me say something of my own at the end.”

“... And?”

“I said it. I used the safe word, I told the camera that they didn’t have any bubblegum here and now he’s gonna try and get me and he’s gonna die, and…” Elia inhaled shakily, gripping my forearm. I hissed where she touched the bruise.

“No, it’s good that you did that,” I reassured her, prying her fingernails off my arm. It was an awful mistake, but I couldn’t bring myself to confirm her nightmares. “This does complicate things.” If people were going to disappear and not die, it’d make it harder for those of us trying to solve this mess.

“What do you think is gonna happen?” Elia asked, pressing against my side.

“We’ll have to be more careful about assuming deaths, at least until everyone is done with the videos,” I said. “How long did yours take?”

“About half an hour. I missed lunch.” She frowned. “What’s gonna happen to my dad?”

“Nothing,” I snapped. Elia flinched, looking at her minuscule feet. I sighed. “I mean, uh, I‘m sure he’ll be fine.” I continued along my route, but Elia wouldn’t leave.

“What’d you do at detectives?” She said, bouncing up and down. She wore flip-flops that clicked against the tiles when she walked.

“Removed monitors. Got some tape for the vents,” I said.

“Vents? Monitors?” Elia asked, her brow knit in confusion. 

I took out a monitor for perhaps the hundredth time. “These things. We aren’t sure what they do.” 

“Is that a monitor? Where’d you get it?”

I bit my lip. “Dead body.” It was the coldest out of the two, from earlier today.

“Whose?”

“Ayona,” I lied, again. She couldn’t confirm it.

“Oh,” Elia said, looking downcast. “What about the vents?”

“That’s how they’re traveling. The murderer. We’re gonna tape them shut so they can’t do it.”

“That’s a good idea.” Elia perked back up, lifting her button nose in the air. “Did you come up with that?”

“Not really. It was a group effort.”

“Can I have some tape?”

“Take my share. I can get more later.” I took it out of my pocket, peeling it apart from itself. “Here.”

“Are you sure?” Elia accepted, hesitation written on her face. “Thank you.” She scanned her leggings for pockets. “I guess I’ll carry it.” She shrugged, sticking it to her fingernail, its penned designs faded. Elia jokingly poked me, the tape crumpling. 

“Be careful with that,” I said, wincing at the places it stuck to itself.

“I’ll try.” Elia grinned. “Thanks again.” She booped my nose with the tape. Satisfied, Elia skipped off into the distance, wiggling the finger with the tape on it. I smiled until she was out of sight, wisps of hair at the back of her neck wavering. 

I bit my lip, again. The tape might not be strong enough. And Alumni hadn’t considered that the murderer could be among the detectives. If that was the case, we were as good as dead.

It could be me. Don’t forget I can lie to you, too.


	10. Chapter 10

_ A rose, a promise _

_ To be there till the end _

_ A camera, a profit _

_ Ready to transcend _

I’m dreaming, I know that. There’s radio static in my ears, a soft hum that sets my teeth on edge. I open my eyes in a hallway. I turn around, searching my surroundings. No one is there. I swivel forward again, my heartbeat pounding in my chest. 

The hallway’s changed. There are eyes, blue and shining, and focused on me. I glance behind me. More eyes, unblinking and hollow. I start sprinting, eyeballs squishing under my feet, and covering my sneakers with blood. The static is growing louder, pressing inside my head.

I round a corner, the floor stained crimson with blood. My world tilts, flinging me against the wall with a squelch. Blood in my hair, blood on my shirt, red and drying fast. I gasp for air, pushing onto my feet with sticky hands.

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream.

I sprint forward, closing my eyes. They’re following me, looking at me. I’m spinning, my limbs flying against the walls of the tunnel, like a ragdoll. The back of my neck prickles. It’s alive.

I woke with a start, breathing hard. My eyes darted around the room. A pair of shoes strewn on the floor. Sheets tangled around my legs.

I’m here. I’m in The Game.

I closed my eyes, leaning back against my pillow with a sigh. That was the second one this week. I’m already sick of it.

I swung my legs around the side of the bed and grabbed a pair of pants from my closet. If this was an experiment, it was well-funded. Or a tv show. I glanced at the camera in the corner of my room. It was tucked away in the shadows, nondescript enough that I’d only spotted it last night. I tugged on an oversized shirt, taking extra care around the scratch on my shoulder.

I’d plastered a band-aid on the graze last night, taken from the medical closet. It wasn’t bleeding too heavily, but I didn’t want to take any chances. 

Shoving my feet into my boots, I opened the door with a creak. Bekia greeted me at the door, frowning. “Reni’s dead,” She said.

“Oh.” I looked at the clock. “It’s time for breakfast.”

“Who was Reni’s assigned friend or whatever?” Bekia asked as we walked.

“Kyli,” I answered, pushing the cafeteria doors open. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wanna see how she’s doing,” Bekia said, sliding into a seat next to Rueba. Elia entered behind us, scanning the cafeteria. I waved, motioning for her to come to sit with us. Grinning, she skipped over. 

I blinked as she got closer. “Oh, wow.”

Elia smiled and pointed to her eyes, painted with a rainbow of eyeshadow and flowing eyeliner. “Whaddya think?”

“That looks great.” I didn’t even have to lie.

Rueba gave a quick round of applause, tapping her palm with two fingers. “Bravo, bravo.” She inspected Elia’s eyes again. “Really, you gotta teach me how to do this.”

Elia smiled. “Thank you.” She slipped into a seat.

“Also, question: are you straight?” Rueba asked.

“Um,” Elia stuttered. “I guess?”

“Well, the rest of us are really fucking gay, so have fun.” Rueba grinned. Elia raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, did y’all hear about Reni?” Rueba said.

“No. What happened?” Elia tilted her head to the side.

“Drumroll please…” Rueba tapped her fingers on the table. “She’s dead.” She gave a small chuckle.

“Oh.” Elia sighed. “I thought it was good news.”

“In here?” I said. “Never.”

“I think we should organize little gifts for people when their selected companion dies.” Bekia began. 

“Like what?” Rueba asked, biting into a waffle. “Also, why is the food here so good?”

“Maybe we could draw her something?” Bekia suggested, tapping a pen against the table. “I know we have materials for that.”

“There are flowers in the gardens,” I said. “Dunno where we’d get vases. Or water.”

“They can just die.” Rueba grinned.

“We can use tape to make a bouquet,” Bekia added, pouring syrup over her waffles. “And yeah, if they want us to die so bad, why are they spending money on food?”

“Entertainment,” Kortana said.

“What’s more fun than watching people die?” Rueba responded through a mouthful of carbs. “When are we gonna get the flowers?”

“After breakfast.” Bekia yawned. “You know, if they spent half as much money on beds as they did on food, this wouldn’t be that bad.” I nodded, stifling a yawn of my own.

A few minutes before breakfast was over, we got up and navigated to the gardens. They were next to the cafeteria on the left. Elia entered first and audibly gasped. “I didn’t know we had these.” Her eyes were wide with wonder. 

The room was filled from floor to ceiling with climbing vines, rose bushes, and pale lilies sprouting on the floor. A UV light shone at the top of the room, dying everything in shades of violet. Hedge trimmers hung on the wall beside the door. Bekia scooched past Elia and beelined for the rose bushes.

“Oh, it is warm in here.” Kortana stood in the doorway.

“Can we get sunburns from that?” I pointed to the light, scooting my rosy skin away from it. Elia ducked under my arm, kneeling to the floor to inspect a lily.

“Better question: can we get tan from that?” Rueba pointed to her skin, paler than mine. “I’m so pasty my veins are showing.”

“Hey, a little help?” Bekia tugged on a rose with her whole hand. Only wild roses had thorns, as most of them were bred to be thornless. “I thought we were coming for flowers, not sunbathing.”

“Here.” I picked up a pair of hedge trimmers, almost dropping them. “Heavier than I thought,” I remarked, passing them to Bekia. 

“For clobbering people’s skulls, most likely.” Rueba lay down on the grassy floor. “Hey, could my retinas die if I stare at that light too long?”

“Probably,” Kortana said.

“Nice.” Rueba snorted. 

“Should we grab some… whatever these are?” Bekia pointed to a lily.

“Elodie lilies.” Elia brushed one of the petals with her fingertip. “They don’t have pollen.”

“Ok, let’s, um, get some of those.” Bekia reached for one. “Is Kyli allergic to pollen or…?” She pointed to me.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll find out, I guess.”

“Hey, Elia, what kind of flowers are these?” Rueba pointed to a rose. “I mean, I know they’re roses, but… “

“Bourbon roses.” Elia stood up and tapped the stem of a rose. “Judging by the growth, cross-bred with rambling roses.”

“I don’t know what eighty percent of those words meant, but okay.” Rueba sat up from the floor. “Are we done here?” She asked.

Bekia glanced at the flowers in her hand. “Uh, sure.” She stood up. “Where’s the tape?” She pointed to me.

“Medical closet.” I pointed inside the cafeteria. Bekia motioned to Elia to get up. “Hey, it’s time to go.”

Elia didn’t move, her fingertip brushing the petals of a daffodil. She plucked the blossom, eyes wide with wonder. “I think these are real flowers.” She waved the blossom, and it left a trail of purple mist. 

“Elia?” I said. “We’re going to get tape.” 

“Hey, smell it. It’s real.” She smiled, sticking her nose in the blossom. 

And promptly passed out.

“Elia,” Rueba yelped, lunging to catch her. I grabbed her by the waist, tugging her out of the garden. “We need to get her out of there,” She protested.

“Is everything in here poisoned?” Bekia kicked the greenhouse door closed.

“Wait here. Don’t do anything.” I said, taking off down the halls. My feet pounded against the tiles. I skidded to a stop at my room, glancing around. A closet, to the right of my room. I opened the door, kneeling down to scan the shelves. My hands fumbled blindly, latching onto a coffee-filter esque texture. I tugged, coming out with a shiny, black gas mask. Two loops hung out of the sides for my ears.

I sighed in relief and got back up, dashing back to the trio waiting by the garden. Clumsily, I pulled the gas mask over my face as I ran, screeching to a halt on the tile floors. 

“Where’d you get that?” Rueba asked, pointing to my mask.

“Not important,” I said, panting. I shoved past them and whipped the door open. Elia lay slumped on the vines, the daffodil slipping from her limp fingers. I ripped the daffodil apart, holding it away from my face. After crushing it with my shoe for good measure, I wrapped my arms around Elia’s midsection and lifted with a grunt. I cursed under my breath. “Kortana, can you help?”

She sighed and tiptoed over, holding her shirt over her nose and mouth. “I will get her legs, you get her arms,” She said. I adjusted my position, scooting to the side. “One, two, three.” We lifted. I noticed that Kortana wasn’t even breathing hard. Lucky.

We lowered Elia onto the tiles, re-closing the garden door. I yanked off my mask, dropping it to the floor with a clatter.

“Is she dead?” Bekia asked, kneeling down with the two of us. 

“I don’t know.” I pressed two fingers to Elia’s right wrist, feeling a pulse. “Nope, not yet.”

“She looks like she’s sleeping.” Rueba cocked her head. “Is she sleeping?”

“Should we take her to her room? She’s in ninety-eight.” I asked, looking to my companions for a response. 

“Sure.” Kortana grabbed Elia, hoisting her into the air. My eyebrows rose. She didn’t look all that strong. “Which way?”

“Okay, how did you do that?” Rueba pointed to Elia, clutched in Kortana’s arms. “She’s gotta be like, at least a hundred pounds.”

Kortana shrugged. “I go to the gym here a lot.” She tilted her head in the direction of the rooms. “Come on.”

I picked up my mask from the floor, leading her down the 50-100 hall. 

“Okay, now can I ask you where you found that?” Rueba asked, motioning to the mask in my hand. “I need to get one.”

“I don’t remember, some closet.” I held up the mask. “This one is from my room,” I said, holding up a hand for Kortana to stop. “This is her room.” I set the mask down, grabbing Elia’s thumb and pressing it against the scanner. The lock clicked, and Bekia opened the door for Elia. She still had the bouquet. 

Kortana laid Elia down on the bed, placing her head on the pillow. 

“What now?” I asked, perching on the corner of Elia’s bed. 

“Wait for her to wake up, I guess.” Bekia sighed, curling her hands together. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” She said, slipping out the door with the bouquet. I narrowed my eyes. She didn’t need that in the bathroom.

“Okay, now that she’s gone, are you bisexual?” Rueba turned to me. “Because you’re giving me huge bisexual vibes.”

I froze. “Yeah, why?” 

“Just wanted to see if my gaydar works. Score one for me.” Rueba grinned. 

Kortana glanced between the two of us. “What just happened? What is a gaydar?”

Rueba gasped and pointed to Kortana. “Token heterosexual, token heterosexual.” She laughed. “Gaydar is a sense we homos get when another is among us.” 

“Okay?” Kortana’s brow knit in confusion. Elia stirred on the bed, murmuring something intelligible. “Shut up.” Kortana raised a finger at the two of us. 

“Elia?” I asked, tapping her hand. “Are you awake?”

“Did you smell the flower?” Elia slowly opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling. “I smelled it.” She grinned like a dope. “Wait.” Her smile faded. “How’d I get here?”

“The flower was poisoned,” I said.

“We think.” Rueba clarified.

“It was?” Elia’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”

“Appropriate reaction.” Rueba nodded her approval. “Bekia’s in the bathroom,” She said before Elia could ask. 

Elia sighed, sitting up in the bed. “Wait, did you give the flowers to Kyli?” 

“No.” I shook my head. “Bekia still has them.”

“She’s alone with the poison-emitting flowers?” Rueba raised an eyebrow. I nodded. “Uh oh.” Rueba looked at the clock. “I’ll give her ten minutes then we go looking.” 

“I don’t think it’s poison,” I said. “I think it’s just concentrated sleeping gas, the same stuff that got released yesterday. I saw a little puff when Elia moved the flower.”

“You mean this morning?” Kortana corrected.

“Oh, yeah,” I sighed.

“Okay, you saw that too? I thought it was my eyes not liking me again.” Rueba chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it could be sleeping gas.”

“How did the murderer get that stuff?” Elia asked.

“I might have an explanation, but we should probably wait for Bekia to get back,” I said, scooting back onto the bed.

“If she gets back,” Rueba said. “Just kidding.” She grinned at Elia’s moment of panic. 

A few minutes later, Bekia returned without the flowers. 

“Where’d you put them?” Rueba asked.

“Put what?” Bekia asked. 

“The flowers.”

“Oh, I threw them in the trash.” Bekia twirled a loose hair around her finger. She paused, pointing to Elia. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah, she woke up a few minutes ago,” Rueba said. 

“The flowers had sleeping gas in them,” I said. “The same stuff they used this morning.”

“Yeah, you said you had an explanation for how they weaponized the flowers.” Rueba pointed to me. 

“Follow me.” I hopped off the bed and opened Elia’s door, gesturing for the others to walk through. I slipped out behind them, the door slamming behind me. “Okay… “ I paused, orienting myself. “This way.” I pointed to a closet in the hallway behind my room. 

“It’s in a closet?” Rueba opened the door, revealing a mop and cart of janitorial supplies. “That’s just cleaning stuff.” She said. 

I shoved past her and crawled onto the floor, moving the cart aside. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I spotted the outline of a panel in the wall. I grabbed it and yanked it off the wall, revealing a bright tunnel wide enough for two people.

“Whoa.” Bekia and Kortana gasped at the same time. 

“When did you find this?” Bekia asked, her jaw dropping to the floor. 

“Last night,” I said, clambering into the tunnel. The metal was cold against my bare hands. “Anyone coming?” 

“No, no, thanks,” Rueba said with a nervous smile. “Too small. I’ll stay out here and guard.” She crossed her arms, scowling at the hallways. “See? Intimidating.”

“I’ll come.” Bekia offered. 

“Me too.” Kortana held up her hand. “Elia?”

“I’ll stay with Rueba.” She said. “Do you want us to close the panel after you’re done?”

“No, I think it locks.” I beckoned to Bekia and Kortana, crawling forward to make room. “Come on.”

Bekia squeezed into the tunnel, looking behind her to watch Kortana. “Are you sure about this?” She asked, scanning the tunnel walls. 

I didn’t respond, continuing forward. The tunnel extended in a straight line, and it took us a few minutes of crawling to find the exit. I clambered out hands-first, awkwardly standing up to find myself in a lab. 

“Okay, whoa,” Bekia said, climbing out behind me. She stepped to the side, allowing Kortana to escape, too.

“Holy shit,” Kortana exclaimed. “Excuse my language, but… holy fucking shit.” She swiveled around, taking in the sights.

Shelves lined the walls, full of opaque boxes, and a few devices that I couldn’t identify. One table was full of microscopes, and another covered in bowls of crushed flower petals that breathed out puffs of purple smoke. Gas masks hung on hooks near a locked door. White lights flickered above us, bathing the surfaces in harsh light.

Bekia stepped closer to one of the devices, a circle with a timer and cracks on its surface. “This looks like it could release the gas,” She said.

“Fingerprinting.” Kortana pointed to a few scanners. “Why did you not bring some of these?” She asked me.

“I found this place late last night, and I didn’t have time to check it out,” I said, perusing the boxes. “Hey, melatonin.” I pulled out a bottle of gummies from the box and slipped it into my pocket. 

“What’s in this stuff? It’s called ‘fingerprint remover.’” Bekia held up a few bottles. “Not sure I wanna find out.”

Kortana shrugged, plunging her hand into a box. She shrieked, whipping it back out. The box tipped over, its neon orange contents spilling out onto the floor. Acid, sizzling, and flowing across the floor. I hopped onto a table, noticing a pair of gloves on its neighbor. “Bekia, the floor is lava,” I called, sneaking a vial of “Fingerprint Remover” into my pocket during the chaos.

Bekia yelped, noticing the shallow river of acid and climbing up to a table. “Where did that come from?” She sat cross-legged near the microscopes.

“Kortana, she… wait, did your hand get burnt off or something?” I looked at her.

“No.” She clutched her hand to her chest, curled into a ball on the table next to mine. “It took off the paint.” She held up her hand, shining in the light.

Her metal hand.


	11. Chapter 11

_I need you to fix it_

_Something’s gone awry_

_I need you to save this_

_So I don’t have to lie_

“Wait a minute. You had a metal hand this whole time and you never bothered to tell us?” Bekia asked. “That would’ve been useful in so many situations.”

“Like what?” Kortana curled her other hand around the metal one, concealing it as best she could.

‘I don’t know, you could’ve uppercutted a wall or something.” Bekia mimed a punching motion.

“Uh, I don’t mean to interrupt, but there is acid on the floor,” I said, preparing to climb to the table next to me and get the gloves. They appeared to be made of the same stuff as the tables and floor, so they might not melt.

“Yeah, that’s a cause for minor concern.” Bekia peered over the edge of the table at the river.

“Is it even acid?” Kortana asked. 

“Are you volunteering to test that?” Bekia asked.

I tipped an empty glass beaker off my table. It sizzled to a crisp in the solution, dissolving instantly. “Yep, it’s acid. Or it’s really, really hot.” I pulled my legs further onto the table. 

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Kortana cried. She pointed to our entry point, which opened a few inches away from the frothing liquid.

I stood up on my table and stared down the one with the gloves. 

“What are you doing?” Bekia asked. “Be careful.”

“No, I’m just gonna fall into the lava.” I snapped. then winced. “Sorry.” I bit my lip and took a hop over to the table. I settled clumsily, knocking a beaker off the table. I sat back down on the table, shaking. 

“I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I do not like this,” Kortana muttered, burying her face in her legs. 

I sighed. “Kortana, do you see the box floating in the acid right near you?” I asked, pointing to the shallow container. “I need you to pick that up.”

“Pick it up?” Kortana asked. 

“Your hand is immune to the acid,” Bekia said. 

“But… okay.” Kortana lay down flat on the table, stretching her arm over the side. “This is happening, oh no.” She fumbled for the container, gripping the side of the table with her other hand. “Oops, uh, okay, I got it.” She pulled herself up, carefully placing the container on the table. “It has some acid on the bottom, uh…”

“Throw it over here.” I yanked the gloves on my hands.

“You want me to what?” Kortana gripped the container in her metal hand.

“Uh, wait, never mind.” I took off the gloves and unzipped my boots. “Hold onto that for a second.” I pulled my socks off and stretched the gloves over my feet. Tentatively, I dipped my toe in the acid. When it didn’t immediately vaporize, I slid my other foot off the table. The gloves came halfway to my knees, and the fingers flapped around my heels. 

“Oh, smart.” Bekia grinned. “What about us, though? There’s only one pair of gloves.”

I took a step toward Kortana’s table, wading in about a centimeter of liquid. “Box, please.” 

She passed it to me, holding onto the edge. “Be careful of the bottom.” 

“Hey, we should take some stuff from here,” Bekia added.

I grabbed my shoes from the table and put them in the box, along with some fingerprint scanners. With slow steps, I walked toward the entrance and clambered inside, sliding the tray in first. My knee grazed the acid as I crawled inside, tearing a hole in my pants. I hissed and looked down to see the skin scraped off. 

“Are you okay?” Bekia asked from the lab.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I emptied the box of its contents and tugged the gloves off my feet. My fingers bled where they touched the dried acid. I threw the gloves in the box and turned back around on my hands and knees. My knee protested at the cold metal.

“How are we supposed to escape?” Kortana asked. 

“Working on it,” I muttered, sticking my head out of the entrance. There was a table in the middle, right next to the entrance. “Can one of you hop over to this table?” I pointed at it, blood dripping off my fingertips.

“Uh, you can go.” Bekia offered Kortana.

“Thanks.” Kortana leaped over two tables and landed on the middle one, gripping a gas bomb in each hand. 

I dropped the box into the acid and nudged it in her direction. “Catch.”

“Wait, what? Oh, again.” Kortana leaned over and grabbed it with two hands. She held it over the surface, so the acid dripped on the table. “I put these on, right?” She held up the gloves with her metal hand.

“Yeah.” I nodded, crawling backward. “On your feet.”

“Uh, okay.” Kortana grappled with the gloves, as her feet were larger than mine. She lifted her foot in the air, wiggling the fingers of the gloves. “Now, what?”

“Just walk across, I guess. Be careful,” I said. 

“Okay, I guess I am doing this, now.” Kortana hung her legs over the acid and slowly lowered her ankles in, using her arms to steady her descent. She bent down to pull the gloves further over her shins, nudging the box along with her. Kortana reached the entrance to the tunnel and handed me her shoes from the box. “Uh, oh.” She tried to clamber into the tunnel but slipped. Her left thigh grazed the lava, making ripples in the liquid. She yelped, clutching at it. 

I grabbed her free hand, tugging her into the tunnel before any further damage. She collapsed onto the floor, gripping her leg. I peeled her hands away, not bothering to ask.

“What’s happening?” Bekia called from the middle table.

I inspected the wound as it bled over the metal. A chunk of her flesh was taken off, blood flowing bright red over it. I pulled the gloves off her feet, the last remaining skin on my fingers tearing off. I hissed, putting the gloves in the box and scooting around Kortana. “Bekia, you ready?”

She nodded, trembling on the table. 

“Okay, catch.” I floated the container into the lava. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Kortana said between gasps for air. 

“Uh, scoot back.”

Kortana winced, dragging herself deeper into the tunnel. She glanced down. “Holy shit, that is a lot of blood.”

“Yeah, I know.” I sighed, looking behind me for Bekia. A clatter sounded behind me, and my heart sank. “Bekia, are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She said, tapping me on my bare foot with the tray. It scraped on the metal. "I put our shoes and stuff on the tray."

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Kortana, keep moving.” 

She groaned, her face tight with pain. “Sure, yeah, l will do that.” 

I clenched my hands into fists, crawling on my elbows and knees to keep weight off my fingers. “Bekia, did you get hurt anywhere?”

“Not yet,” She said. “I’m still wearing the gloves, is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll take them off when we get to the end,” I said. 

“Kortana, are you okay? Do you want me to pull you or something?” Bekia asked, peering over my shoulder.

“Actually, wait a minute.” I stopped crawling and took my knife out of my pocket.

“What are you doing?” Kortana asked, turning to look at me. “Is that a knife?”

“Hold on.” I held up my shirt with a free hand and cut off a long strip with the knife, turning it into a crop top. “Gimme your leg.”

“Uh…” Kortana motioned to her thigh. “That might be a problem.”

“Okay, ” I turned around and scooted back toward the two of them. “Hold still.” Kortana had been sliding through on her butt, with her legs extended in front of her. Bekia looked over Kortana’s shoulder, her face pale.

I sighed, seeing Kortana’s gray leggings soaked with blood. “I’m just gonna tie this over the leggings.” I looped the fabric over the top of the wound and lifted it to go around the bottom. Kortana winced, meeting my eyes. Hers were indigo, I noticed. Contacts.

I tightened the fabric around where the bleeding was the worst and tied a double knot. “We can get some bandages once we’re out of here,” I said, continuing my crawl. 

“Do you want me to just… push you?” Bekia asked from behind Kortana.

“Uh, I... I am good,” Kortana answered, her metal hand clanging against the floor as she nudged herself forward. “How much further?”

I glanced ahead at the tunnel, seeing the opening ahead. “A few more feet, I think.” I crawled forward and stuck my head out of the exit. “Elia, Rueba?” I called in the dark.

The door opened, flooding the closet with light. Rueba came around the corner, kneeling to see me.

I grinned. “Hey, I might need your help with Kortana.” I clambered out onto the floor, knocking a mop over in the process. Blood from my hands and knee sprinkled on the floor.

“Oh, you’re bleeding. What happened in there?” Rueba asked.

“Not important. Elia, go get some bandages and disinfectant from the medical closet in the cafeteria.” I pointed to the door, where I assumed she was.

“Okay.” Elia’s footsteps departed down the hall. 

A thump sounded behind me, followed by a very Kortana-sounding yelp. I whipped around, aggravating my scraped knee. 

Kortana sat on the floor, both hands pressed against the wound. Bekia’s head poked out behind her, scanning the closet. 

“Oh my god, uh, oh fuck, I, um… “ Rueba backed up, fumbling for the door handle behind her. “I’ll let you handle that.” 

“Wow, thanks,” I muttered, sliding Kortana across the floor using her healthy leg. She hissed in pain. I motioned to Bekia to climb out with my free hand. She stuck her feet out first, presenting me with the gloves.

I reluctantly yanked them off, leaving bloody fingerprints on her legs. 

“You might want to get some band-aids for your hands.” Bekia kicked the gloves to the side with her foot, unfurling from the tunnel.

“We have bigger problems.” I glanced out the door at the hallway, searching for Elia. “I don’t know how we’re gonna treat this besides cleaning it and stopping the bleeding.” I pointed to Kortana’s leg.

“Did any of you take first aid, or are we making this up as we go?” Kortana looked between the two of us.

“I read somewhere to keep wounds elevated,” Bekia said. “Maybe… um… here.” She emptied a box of cleaning supplies on the floor and eased Kortana’s ankle onto it.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Kortana slapped Bekia on the arm. “Sorry.” She retracted her hand, offering another of her off-smiles. I bit my lip. 

“Where’s Elia?” Bekia rubbed her arm. 

“On her way,” I answered.

“Also, where’d Rueba go?”

“To her room, I think. Too much blood.”

Kortana smiled again, raising the hairs on my arms. “You know, considering what we deal with every month, I do not understand how she is grossed out.”

“You deal with murders every month?” Bekia asked, not paying attention to the words. She paused. “Oh my god, you meant periods.” She facepalmed. 

I laughed. “No, I think she meant murders.”

“Every month, someone gets stabbed.” Kortana chuckled.

“That’s how the world works.” Bekia grinned. 

Someone knocked on the open door. “Anyone in here?” 

“Hello.” Kortana waved from the floor.

“Uh, keep pressure on that. That’s what they do in the movies,” Bekia said, glancing at me for reassurance.

Muyin’s head appeared from behind the door. “Oh, it’s you.” She glared at me and waved to Kortana and Bekia.

“Kortana, Bekia.” I pointed to the two of them. “Do you know about this place, too?” I asked Muyin.

Muyin knelt on the floor, reaching for the dried acid on the gloves.

“Hey, hands-off.” I snapped, pulling her hand away. 

Muyin’s eyebrows rose at the blood on my fingertips and even more at Kortana’s leg. “I see you managed to spill the acid.”

“Yeah- how’d you know that was acid?” Bekia asked before I could. 

Muyin held up her finger, wrapped in a bandaid. “Ouch.” She glanced at Kortana’s hand. “Huh. Kinda weird that your hand is made of the specific metal that’s immune.”

Kortana looked at her hand. “I think the acid only affects organic materials.”

I pointed to my sweatpants, shredded around my knee. “Your hand had paint on it.” 

“Why does this matter? She’s bleeding.” Bekia interrupted.

“Thank you.” Kortana gave her an appreciative nod. “Am I supposed to do anything else besides press really hard?”

“By the way, there’s a dead body in the closet a few doors down.” Muyin pointed with her thumb. I bit my lip, then stopped myself. “Near… room seventy-eight,” Muyin continued.

I sighed. We’d walked past there on our way to my room, so this must’ve been recent. 

“But… we were just there.” Kortana’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Blood doesn’t smell when it’s fresh,” Muyin said. “You probably missed it.” 

Bekia shrugged. “Eh, we’ll check it out after Elia comes back. Rueba too, I hope.” She leaned back against the wall, twirling a stray hair around her finger.

“Who was it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Mexican, black hair, wears a lot of eyeliner? She’s a detective,” Muyin said. 

“Otakairre.” I forced myself to exhale, taking my hand off my knife. Not Elia, not Rueba. “Okay, thanks.” I put on my socks and shoes, handing the others their pairs.

“Hey, I got the bandages. I wasn’t sure what you meant, so I brought Band-aids, too. Also, I only found this bottle… “ Elia paused, looking at Kortana’s leg. She offered a roll of bandages. “I got paper towels, too.” She held up the roll and the bottle of disinfectant. “...If you need it.” Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, barely visible in the dim light.

“Kortana, move into the light,” I said. “Also, you should probably take off your leggings.”

“Which one do I do first?” Kortana asked. 

“Probably the pants,” Bekia said.

“This is going to hurt.” Kortana grabbed the waistband of her pants and lifted her butt off the ground for a second to slip it over. “Ow, ow, ow…” She peeled the bloodstained leggings off her legs, leaving them bunched around her ankles. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Are you okay?” Elia asked from above her.

Bekia took the disinfectant from Elia and a few paper towels. I reached for the bandages. “No, you take care of your fingers.” Bekia passed me a box of Band-aids, shooing my hands away. “I’ve got this.”

“Are you sure? I’ve done that before-”

“Oh my god, just take the Band-Aids,” Kortana said. “My butt’s getting cold.”

I sighed and opened the box, the edges cutting into my fingertips. The smallest size they had still made creases and valleys as it looped around my thumb. Elia sat down beside me, placing the excess paper towels between us.

“This is gonna sting. A lot.” Bekia said, readying the towel. 

“Go ahead.” Kortana braced herself against the wall. “Make it quick, rub salt in it while you’re at it.”

“Will do.” Without any further warning, Bekia pressed the towel on the wound. 

Kortana hissed, her hands jerking toward her leg. “Okay, bandage time,” Bekia said, withdrawing the towel. “This looks a little big for a band-aid.” She held down the end of the bandage and wrapped it in uneven loops around Kortana’s leg. “Is that too tight?”

Kortana shook her head. “You might want to make it tighter. Cut off the circulation.”

“I’m scared I’m gonna hurt you.” Bekia tucked the other end of the bandage in. “Avi, are your hands okay?”

I paused in wrapping my second-to-last finger. “Uh, yeah.” I grabbed the last band-aid, along with a big one for the scrape on my knee. 

“Do you need me for anything else?” Elia asked. When we shook our heads, she stood up. “I- I got something to do in my room.” She slipped out the door, knocking the paper towels over in the process.

“Bye.” Kortana pulled her leggings back up, the bandage peeking out from the hole the acid burned out. “Oh, this is quite a look.”

Muyin hovered in the corner, watching us tend to various wounds. “What about that one?” She pointed to my arm.

I froze. “Which one?” 

“The one on your arm, duh,” Muyin said. 

“My arm didn’t touch the lava.” I met her gaze, blindly applying a bandaid to my knee.

“Whatever you say,” Muyin smirked.

Kortana glanced between the two of us. “What was that about?”

“Nothing.” I snapped. “Can you walk?” Muyin rolled her eyes in my peripheral vision, muttering something under her breath.

Kortana pulled on her second shoe. “Maybe.” She held up an arm. “Help a lady up?” 

I stood, tugging her to her feet. She winced, hopping on her uninjured leg. 

“Do you want us to carry you?” Bekia asked. “I think we could all do it.”

“Where are we going?” Kortana wobbled, placing a hand against the wall for support. “I think just a spare arm will be fine.” She said to Bekia.

“Otakairre’s body.” I nudged past Bekia and Kortana and into the hallway. My eyes protested at the sudden change in brightness, dark spots appearing in front of my vision. I stumbled, blinking rapidly.

“Avi? Are you okay?” Bekia and Kortana came out behind me, with Muyin trailing at the rear. 

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Just… brightness change.” A lie, but they couldn’t confirm it. 

“I hate that,” Kortana said, limping with Bekia supporting her hurt side. “Are we gonna go?”

“Lead the way.” Bekia motioned to Muyin.

Muyin shoved past me, giving an extra-hard shoulder to the graze on my arm. I glowered at the back of her head. Sloppy, sloppy. 

Muyin stopped at the closet near room seventy-eight, startling Bekia and Kortana.

“Oh, I smell it.” Kortana wrinkled her nose. “That’s awful.”

Muyin pinched her nose. “Who volunteers to go first?”

“Not me.” Kortana raised her hand. “I volunteer to leave.” 

“Hey, uh, hi. I’m back.” Rueba said from behind. “What’re we doing at this closet?”

“Uh, dead body,” Bekia explained.

“Oh. I volunteer to leave, too.” Rueba said. “But seriously, why are we just standing here?”

I sighed. “I’ll open it.” I turned the handle, doing my best to ignore the blinking red light in the corner of Kortana’s eye.


	12. Chapter 12

_ I’ve lost my mind _

_ I’ve lost my soul _

_ I’ve lost my life  _

_ I’m out of control _

The door opened with a squeak, the handle creaking as I turned it. A smell wafted toward us, metallic and rotten. 

“Okay, I’m leaving. That’s it.” Rueba squeezed her eyes shut. “There is way too much blood in here.”

Bekia leaned over my shoulder, hauling Kortana with her. “That’s not as bad as the other one.” I nodded in agreement. 

“Other one?” Rueba squealed. “Wait, don’t tell me.” She turned away. “Lemme know when you close the door, please.”

Otakairre’s limbs drooped at her sides, her body slumped on the cold tile floor. The gash in her throat dripped blood, staining the front of her white hoodie.

“Does anyone have those fingerprint scanners?” Kortana asked.

“Shoot, I left them back at the closet,” Bekia groaned. 

“I’ll go get them,” I said, already walking.

“Oh, thanks.” Bekia grinned. 

I stood up, gripping a scanner in each hand and two more tucked under my armpits. My heart thumped in my chest for no apparent reason, an uneasy feeling of rubatosis. I took a deep breath. Nothing to worry about. I had never been in that closet, so I had no reason to be anxious.

I reached the three of them standing like bodyguards outside the closet, with their arms crossed over the chests. Kortana rested on the floor next to Rueba.

Solemnly, Rueba nodded at me. “VIP’s only.” She jerked her thumb to the closet.

“Yeah, private lounge,” Bekia said, deepening her voice to that of an old-school macho man.

Muyin sighed, uncrossing her arms. “You two got your moment, now gimme the scanners.” She held out her hands.

I relinquished her the two in my hands, curling and unfurling my toes in my shoes. “How do you work those?” I asked.

“You know how.” Muyin scowled at me, holding down the button on the handle and scanning Otakairre’s body. She passed one to Kortana, too.

Rueba gazed up at the ceiling. “Gross, gross, gross. Tell me when it’s over.”

The scanner beeped, revealing Otakairre’s fingerprints on her hands and clothes. “Wait.” Muyin swiped the scanner to the left. “I found someone else’s.” She pointed at a blank ID. “Who is this?”

“Person deleted.” Bekia read off the scanner. 

Kortana perked up. “What?” She twisted to see into the closet.

“Looks like they got to these before us.” Muyin raised an eyebrow at me, a knowing look in her eyes. 

I bit my lip. She knew what I’d contemplated. Of course, she did. “Yeah.” I sighed, kicking the closet door closed. 

“Hey,” Muyin cried. “I was using that.”

“For what? It’s a corpse,” I said. 

“Kinky.” Rueba giggled, earning a questioning look from Kortana. “What? Necrophilia’s a thing.” She said, looking down from the ceiling. “Oh good, you closed the portal to hell.”

“We need to figure out whose fingerprints those are,” Bekia said. “I know it’s not any of us.” 

“Why not?” Muyin asked.

“We’ve been together the whole time, and this is a fresh kill,” I said.

“...She says with no emotion whatsoever,” Rueba teased. “I’m kidding.” She reassured Kortana. 

“Hey, we still need to get something for… “ Bekia trailed off, snapping her fingers. “What’s her name again?”

“Kyli,” I answered, honing in on Bekia's short, painted black nails. 

“I think this scanner is broken,” Kortana said, holding up hers. “I scanned my fingerprints, and it says ‘person deleted’ again.”

I activated one of my scanners, pressing it to my finger. “Yeah, same thing.” I showed Kortana the screen.

“They’re broken, aren’t they?” Rueba said.

“Someone must’ve wiped the database,” Muyin said, tilting her head in my direction. “These are useless to us now.” 

“Is there any way to restore them?” Bekia asked.

“How would we know?” Rueba said, holding out a hand. “Gimme.”

“Didn’t it show Otakairre, though? Maybe it’s just us that got wiped.” I said, tossing her my excess scanner. 

Rueba yelped, clutching the scanner with two hands. “Nailed it.”

“We could just make her a card,” Bekia said, proceeding with Kyli’s gift. “Since those flowers aren’t an option.”

“I can get paper,” Kortana said.

I hesitated in lifting my finger to speak, curling it back into a fist. 

“Bekia, can you help?” Kortana asked, wiggling her hand in the air.

“Oh, yeah.” Bekia glanced at me, Muyin, Rueba. “You three guarding the body?” 

“No, thanks. I’ll come with you two.” Muyin smirked at me, following Bekia and Kortana. Her mary jane shoes clicked against the tile floor. I bit my lip. I’d wanted to go with Bekia, but we had to leave two here to ensure safety.

Rueba waited in silence for a few minutes, watching their figures turn the corner. “Hey, so… you.” She swiveled on her heel to face me.

“Me.” I pointed to myself. “What about me?”

“You and Bekia. I’m getting crush vibrations,” Rueba said.

“What is this, seventh grade?” I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Are you sure? I ship you two so hard.”

“No, she’s a friend,” I said. Sure, she was kind and smart and generous and beautiful and… oh. Oh no. I sighed. The one time I genuinely liked someone, it was in here.

“Uh, something wrong?” Rueba asked. My panic must’ve shown on my face.

I paused, pretending to consider something, then forced my face to brighten. “Sorry, I thought I’d left my door unlocked.”

“Oh.” Rueba leaned back against the wall. “Well, now I don’t know what to talk about.” She snapped her fingers. “Murder. Let’s talk about murder, like normal people. Who do you think it is?”

“Muyin. She’s suspicious of me for no reason,” I said. “Or Aspen. I mean, I did walk in on her with a dead body.”

“You what?” Rueba’s jaw dropped. “Hold up, Aspen did what?”

“I think it was self-defense,” I said.

“Oh. You should’ve led with that.” Rueba shrugged. “Muyin might be onto something, though. You said you got that gas mask from your room, but that's near the closet we found Otakairre in. And if it’s a fresh kill…”

I tried to bite my lip, then stopped myself. That’s a tell. “Huh. That does look bad for me.” I reached into my pocket, pulling out my knife. “You can check this if you want.”

“Holy sh*t, you have a knife. Please don’t stab me.” Rueba held her hands in front of her face, eyeing me through her fingers. “Put that away, put it down.”

I sighed, inspecting the blade. “Nope, no blood.” I glanced at the bottom of my shoes. “Yeah, no evidence on me.”

“What else do you have in those?” Rueba pointed to a lump in my other pocket with a shaky hand. 

I held up the monitors. “Mind control.”

“Alright,” Rueba said, edging away from me. “Also, knife. Away.” 

I dutifully slipped it into my pocket, fumbling with the sheath. “Ciarre’s mind control thing had a timer, but I don’t know if anyone else’s does.”

“Ciarre? You mean the ‘real murderer?’” Rueba made quotations in the air as she spoke. “That means the current murderer must have one, too.”

I bit my lip. “Yeah. Do you have one?” 

“Nope,” Rueba said, feeling at the back of her neck. “Do you?”

I shook my head. “No. “

“It sounds like we’re talking about ticks.” Rueba grinned. “Not… whatever those things are.” 

I gave a close-lipped smile, twirling a monitor in my hand.

“You know, you never denied being a murderer. That’s suspicious.” Rueba said, pronouncing the last sentence like a baby. “I’m kidding, I trust you.” She smiled.

I didn’t respond, spying Muyin, Kortana, and Bekia walking back. I dropped the monitors back in my pocket, the metals clicking against each other. 

Rueba waved, walking over to meet them. “Do you guys have mind control?”

Muyin and Bekia shook their heads, Muyin glowering at me. 

“You mean that thing on Chailia?” Kortana asked, rubbing her neck. “No.”

Rueba sighed in relief. “Did you get the paper?”

Bekia held up her arms, a stack of paper teetering on them. Muyin nudged a pen out from behind her ear, clutching it in her hand like a weapon.

“Can any of you draw? I was thinking we’d just draw a bouquet of flowers instead of getting physical ones.” Bekia said, watching a paper drift to the ground with a resigned sigh.

“Uhhh…” Kortana trailed off, while Rueba just laughed.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Bekia said. 

I stared at the off-white tiles below me, not wishing to look at her any longer. Knowing my feelings made me hyper-aware of them, of each little feature of hers that I, unfortunately, adored. Even from the floor, I saw strands of her hair, long and shiny. I wanted to touch it, to run my fingers through the dark brown ocean. No, stop. Focus, don’t let her distract you.

I forced myself to lift my head, seeing the red light in Kortana’s eye, again. My heart skipped a beat, hands clenched into fists. A spy, she was a spy. A brain made of code and nerves of wire, like Carisse’s.

Wait. I’m not supposed to know that. You’re not supposed to, either. I can’t afford to be sloppy, not even this early in the game.

“I can’t draw either,” I said. “Maybe I could ask Karnae?”

“Who?” Rueba asked. “You know what, I don’t care. As long as I don’t have to draw anything.” 

“I’ll ask her at lunch. I don’t know where her room is.” She was in room six. 

“What should we write?” Kortana asked. I noticed Muyin shrinking from our group, fiddling with the pen in her hands.

“Sorry for your loss?” Bekia suggested, beckoning for the pen. “Then we can all sign it.” She folded a page in half, hamburger-style.

Muyin handed her the pen with the cap off, then withdrew again. I watched, mesmerized, as Bekia scrawled the message in painstaking cursive. With her left hand, I noted.

“Who wants to sign first?” Bekia asked after signing her name in neat print below the writing.

Muyin snatched the pen from her hand, scrawling her name on a diagonal to the left of Bekia’s and placing a heart above the “I”. She threw the pen to Rueba, who lunged to catch it. 

“Do not throw things at me.” Rueba pressed the card against her knee and chicken-scratched her name on it, adding a “J” at the end for her last name. She hopped on one foot, waving the pen at me. 

I accepted it, writing my name in shaky handwriting. Kortana took the card and pen without asking, her cold hands brushing against mine. She penned her name in orderly, font-esque letters. 

I studied it, confused, as she handed it back to Bekia.

“I guess you should have it?” Bekia offered me the card. 

I folded it into a small square and slipped it into the pocket with the monitors. “Is it okay if I go now?” I asked.

“Uh… why? Do you need to do something?” Bekia’s lips tilted downward, their plump surface inviting me to come closer. 

I blinked, sweeping those thoughts to the side. “I was gonna go to the gym,” I said.

“Oh. Okay. Bye, I guess.” Bekia gave a halfhearted wave.

I waved back, strolling toward my room with my hands in my pockets. I rubbed my thumb against my knife’s hilt, a satisfied smile tugging at my lips.

| Murderer |

Thirty down, sixty to go.

| Aspen |

The door slammed shut behind me, its sound muffled in my ears. I stumbled forward but didn’t make it to the chair. 

I crumbled, sagging against the wall. 

I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop thinking and replaying every little scenario and my brain wouldn’t stop looping those moments on repeat. Repeating the blinking of that timer, the glimmer of red on her neck. And the crack, that awful crack. Done by my hands. 

They’d believed me, the idiots, they didn’t see through my performance. They thought I was one of the Controlled. Even if she’d seen Gabrise’s note, it was too late now. For me, and her. 

My hands were steady, separate entities from the rest of my body. I promised myself. I vowed that this time, I wouldn’t kill anyone. She had it under control, and she didn’t need my help.

Gabrise shouldn’t have had a monitor. They told me they’d let me off easy. I’d won, and They would let me live this time. In peace.

I felt the edge of the blade, the slicing pain in my fingertip paling in comparison to my exhaustion. I couldn’t do this anymore. Not again.

The note slipped out of my pocket, sliding across the carpet of my room. I didn’t reach for it, lifting my knife in front of me. My face reflected in its blade, eerily calm.

I refuse to be their pawn any longer.


	13. Chapter 13

_ At the end of the hallway _

_ There lies a door _

_ On the other side _

_ They’re waiting for more _

I slid into a seat next to Karnae at lunch. Violle lounged to her right, biting into an apple. Her brown arms were covered in white doodles and dense curls framed her face.

“Hey.” Karnae looked up from her drawing.

“I have a favor,” I said, unfolding the card. “Can you maybe draw some flowers on here? We’re making a card for Kyli because Reni was her… companion, I guess.”

“Will you pay me?” Karnae set down her pen.

“I can give you food.” I offered her a bag of classic potato chips.

“Hell yeah, deal.” Karnae snatched the chips and card. “I’ll give you this at dinner.”

“Also, do you have paint?” I said. 

“F*ck, no. Why?”

“No reason.” I wanted to see if Kortana could repaint her hand or not. 

“Oh. Why’d you ask, then?” Karnae smirked, turning back to her notebook. 

I stayed for a few more minutes to finish my sandwich, staring at the wall. Only the five of us who had found Otakairre’s body had our fingerprints removed, as far as I knew. The person who killed her had erased fingerprints. Either someone else had cleared theirs before, or one of us was a killer.

“Hello? Earth to Avi.” Karnae waved a hand in front of my face. “It’s time to go.”

“Oh.” Lunch must have been getting shorter. “Thanks.” I stood up and headed back to my room, playing with the monitors in my pocket.

#  | Murderer |

I crawled out of the vent into Aspen’s room. They weren’t real vents, but secret passages built for this exact purpose. You couldn’t crawl in air ducts, not with the immense pressure inside them. 

Aspen sat near her door, a knife sticking out of her chest. I ignored her, swiping the note off the floor. I wore no shoes, for fear of getting blood on them again. The vent closed behind my feet as I clambered back in, a clatter I didn’t bother to hide. Anyone who heard would be more terrified than curious.

The passage’s roof pressed over my head, forcing me to look down. These passages were suffocatingly small, but I managed. As long as I kept track of my rights and lefts, I’d survive. Aspen’s room was fifty-two, an acceptable distance from mine. 

I stumbled out into my room, ducking my head to keep from hitting it. My bed greeted me, the covers neatly tucked under my pillows. I sighed, flopping onto it and ripping the seal off the letter.

_ If you’re finding this note, I’m so sorry. You don’t know what you’re in for. You can’t win, I tried. But maybe you’re stronger.  _

__

_ If you need to fake being asleep, those flowers work wonders.  _

_ No one will question hysteria.  _

_ Find somewhere safe to store your resources. Your room isn’t safe.  _

_ There’s an incinerator in the kitchen. Do what you will with this information.  _

_ You can hook security cameras to computers and take videos with them. There’s a background screen in the closet near room seventeen.  _

_ Kill your friends, not your enemies. Be ruthless. There’s no space for kindness here.  _

_ Ignore the side effects. Pain is temporary.  _

_ And for god’s sake, stay away from the Controlled. _

_ Good luck. _

I bit my lip. It appeared that people had won, and they’d put them back in here. If I succeeded, I’d have to escape the facility before the next Game. Aspen must’ve killed Gabrise, seeing that she was a mindslave. 

I needed to dispose of this note at the next opportunity. It couldn’t be found.

At least, not in my room. 

#  | Avi |

“What are you doing?” Muyin asked from the doorway. I paused, holding up a hand to stop the punching bag from whacking me in the face after her entrance.

“What’s it look like?” I lowered the bag, steadying it with my free hand. 

“Why do you have a knife?” Muyin sidestepped around the bag.

“Practice.” I motioned for her to scoot to the side, lifting the knife behind me.

“What are you-” Muyin cut off as the knife hit the wall next to her with a solid thunk. “Oh. Nice job.”

I blinked. “Huh?” 

“That’s a suspicious skill to have.” Muyin tugged the knife out of the wall with a grunt.

I reached and took it back from her with a trembling hand, inspecting the slit in the wall. “My first property damage.”

“Come on.” Muyin took my elbow and dragged me out of the room.

“What are you doing?” I wrenched my arm away, whipping the knife through the air. “Where are we going?” I pulled my sleeve back over my wrist.

“Found a body.” Muyin jerked her thumb in the direction she’d come from.

“And?”

“I would like to know your opinion.” Muyin tugged me toward a closet. “Is that allowed?”

I sighed, reluctantly following her. The scratch on my shoulder protested from the movement, though the working out hadn’t helped, either. 

Muyin opened the door to the closet, revealing Kyli on the floor. I didn’t bother to look surprised and knelt next to her, counting the wounds. Only twenty, scattered like those on Monise. We didn’t need that card anymore.

“Mindslave,” I said, peering around the rest of the dim closet. I cursed. “They didn’t remove their monitor.”

“I know,” Muyin snapped. “You don’t see anything else?”

I shook my head. “Why exactly am I here?”

Muyin shrugged. “It’s a little suspicious that you’re in the room right next to the… fresh corpse.”

“How do you know it’s fresh?” I stood up, brushing off my pants. 

“I don’t.” Muyin tapped her foot on the floor. 

“Okay.” I closed the door to the closet. “Do you need any more incriminating evidence or can you arrest me now?”

“Actually, I-” Muyin glanced at a clock on the wall and cursed. “Never mind.” She turned and sprinted back the way she’d come, her skirt swishing around her knees.

I leaned back against the wall, letting out a sigh of relief. It had to be Muyin. She magically knew where bodies were at any given moment. She tracked me, too. The last thing I needed was a stalker, especially a murderous one.

I sighed, trudging back into the gym. “Back to work,” I muttered to myself.

Karnae held out the card while staring at her sketchbook, almost hitting me in the face before I took it. “Thank you.” I smiled, scanning the tables for Bekia. She and Rueba walked in together, Kortana lagging behind them. I ran up to meet them, holding the letter in my hand. “So… minor problem.” 

“What?” Bekia’s smile fell. 

“Kyli’s dead,” I said. “Muyin found her body.”

“Oh, that’s fun.” Rueba grinned. “What’re we supposed to do with that, then?” She indicated to the card.

I shrugged, subtly leading them to empty seats near Karnae and Violle. Rueba and Kortana sat on either side of Violle, while I was squashed between Bekia and Karnae.

“Uh…. Karnae, right?” Bekia pointed to Violle, who sat across from her.

“Nope.” Violle shook her head, blowing a bubble in her gum.

“Oh.” Bekia twirled a hair around her finger. “You, then.” She turned to face Karnae, leaning around me. 

“Yeah,” Karnae muttered, erasing something with the end of her pencil.

“Thanks for drawing the flowers,” Bekia said.

“She bribed me.” Karnae tapped me on the shoulder with her pencil. 

“Interesting.” Rueba rubbed her chin with her forefinger and thumb, smirking. “I believe we have apprehended a criminal.”

“Big words, scary,” Karnae said.

“I don’t know what to do with this card,” Bekia said, waving it around. “It has Kyli’s name on it.”

“Stick it on her door.” Rueba laughed.

“What if we cut out the flowers and stuck them on a new card for the next person?” Kortana suggested.

“You better not cut off part of my drawing. I’m not doing that again,” Karnae said. “Flowers are nasty.”

“Yeah, they don’t taste very good.” Rueba held up a fork loaded with spaghetti. “This stuff tastes like styrofoam with ketchup on it.”

“Stop pointing it out,” Kortana said, picking at her noodles. 

Karnae grinned, opening the bag of chips I’d given her. “Peasants.”

Violle snorted and revealed two bags of chips in her pockets. “Amateur.” 

“That is how you assert dominance,” Rueba remarked, flicking her finger between the two of them. “Take notes.” She tilted her head at Kortana.

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, a silhouette of a person walking past. I blinked a few times, not bothering to turn my head. 

“Avi? Are you ready to leave?” Karnae gently shook me. 

I nodded, fighting back a yawn. “Coming.”

I flopped onto my bed, ruffling the impeccable covers. Exhaustion hung heavy at my limbs, begging me to never get up again. Reluctantly, I sat up and reached for my computer. The list of participants was already open on the screen.

Thyme hadn't been in the cafeteria. Her last name started with a B, so They might have taken her for a video. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to do something, that I couldn’t just lie around like this. I didn’t have any required duties here, yet a nagging little voice told me I had tasks to complete. 

There were so many people in here, we wouldn’t know the killer until our numbers dwindled to impossible chances.

For lack of better words, we were doomed.

I walked in late to the detectives’ meeting, my new notebook tucked under my arm. Bekia tapped a seat next to her, one she’d obviously been saving. Giving her a close-lipped smile, I slipped in as discreetly as possible. “What’s going on?” I whispered. Everyone was talking to one another, though I couldn’t decipher a word among the chaos. 

“Alumni’s not here, yet,” Bekia explained. I nodded, opening my notebook. The metal rings sparkled, their thin surfaces painted silver. I doodled a scribble at the corner of the lined page, focusing my attention on a conversation between Mayia, Pranshi, and Bayli.

“Hey, we need to keep an eye on Fantasia.” Mayia started off.

“Why?” Bayli asked.

“She washes her hands past her wrists. Gotta kill her before she kills me.” Mayia chuckled. “But seriously, you know how Naom died in one of the bathrooms? Pranshi and I saw her go in one before breakfast. And didn’t Avi say the murderer had dark hair?”

“Ooooh,” Bayli said. “Did Avi describe the killer’s hair texture?”

“Long and straight,” I said absently, coloring in a square on my paper. “Fantasia’s hair is curly.”

“Maybe it’s not her,” Bayli said.

“Hair straighteners exist,” Mayia said.

“I don’t recall you being part of our conversation,” Pranshi said, an accusation lurking on the edge of her words. “Please don’t eavesdrop.”

“Sorry,” I said, though I didn’t mean it. If they mentioned my name in a conversation, I deserved to be part of it. 

The door handle slammed against the wall, whipped open by a panting Alumni. “Sorry I’m late, Kalkara’s dead.”

“Good excuse,” Anomia said.

“Did anyone else find bodies?” Alumni asked, sitting in a chair at the front of the room.

I didn’t bother to raise my hand. Muyin had been there for both, and Bekia for one.

“I feel like a teacher. Uh… Muyin,” Alumni said.

“Otakairre is dead in the closet near room seventy-eight and Kyli is in a closet next to the gym,” Muyin said, pointedly glancing at me as she spoke.

“I found Isia in the cafeteria,” Carmen added.

“Oh, sh*t,” Tourri said. “Lotta people.” 

No one mentioned Aspen. She’d been missing from the cafeteria, and her last name started with M. I needed to stop by her room tonight.

“Avi, we’re going to check out Kalkara.” Bekia grabbed me by the elbow.

“Oh.” I must’ve zoned out. I followed the tail of our cluster to the 50-100 hall. Alumni led us to the closet across from my room, blood splattered on the pinkish tiles. I bit my lip. They probably killed here on purpose, hoping to frame me. 

“Whose room is this?” Alumni pointed to room ninety-nine.

“Olive,” I answered. 

“Isn’t yours across the hall?” Muyin asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“That looks like a… what was the word… mindslave. That looks like a mindslave kill.” Mayia said, pointing to the knife still stuck in her chest, surrounded by similar marks.

Muyin held up a fingerprint scanner, pressing it to the knife’s hilt. She muttered a curse. “They’ve been wiped.”

“Wiped?” Alumni asked.

“Someone’s been removing people’s fingerprints from the database,” I explained.

“Maybe it’s just the dead people.”

“No, mine are gone, too,” Muyin said.

“Oh. That sucks,” Bayli said.

“Is that knife from the extras room?” Bekia asked.

I shrugged. Ignoring cries of alarm, I reached and yanked the knife out, my hand covered by my sleeve. “Yep.” I held up the blade, the engraving shining in the harsh light.

“Why did you do that?” Clairisse cried, stepping away from me. “Why did you touch it?”

“...Do you want me to put it back?” I asked, waving it in the air. Someone in the crowd snorted.

“No, put it down,” Clairisse said. “We have a body to inspect.”

“What’s there to inspect?” Anomia motioned to the corpse. “She’s dead, it was a mindslave. That’s it.” 

I slipped the knife into my pocket, praying no one would hear it clicking against the first one. Another figure slunk on the edge of my vision. I snapped my head around, but no one was there.

“Okay, back to the… meeting room,” Alumni said, her voice piercing the cloud. She shoved her way to the front of the pack, closing the door behind her. “Has anyone set up their camera as Faire said?”

Out of the three who’d raised their hands that first meeting, only Carmen and Bayli remained. They glanced at each other, then back at Alumni.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Alumni said. “You need to do that. If you die, we can get footage.” 

“Are we just gonna ignore the fact that Avi’s room is across from the body?” Mayia said. 

“Yes, we are,” Bekia said, turning back to Alumni. “What’s next on the agenda?”

She makes a good point.” Alumni said. “We can’t count out our own members, so be careful what you share. I don’t want us turning against each other, but the killer could be anyone.” 

“Well, isn’t that reassuring?” Bayli leaned back against the wall. “Can we go sit down? Standing is annoying.”

“I need to distribute more tape.” Alumni walked back down the halls, beckoning for us to follow.

Bekia came up next to me, tapping my hand and making goosebumps rise on my skin. “Hey, you’ve been kinda spacey lately. Do you want me to take your patrol shift?”

“I have a patrol shift?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s early tomorrow morning,” Bekia said.

“I’ll be fine, I’m gonna go to bed early tonight,” I lied, blinking hard to move my eyes from her lips.

“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.” Bekia skipped ahead, her ponytail swishing behind her.

I rubbed my shoulder, feeling the outline of the bandage under my shirt. I had important things to do tonight, and sleep wasn’t one of them. 

#  | Murderer |

They were onto me, I could feel it. Eyes followed my every move, and hallucinations darted around corners. I needed to calm down. Or sleep. My conviction was slipping. I was getting too trigger-happy, too eager for this to be over.

But I was so, so tired.


End file.
